15/01/2021
Very sad to say there will be no Strawberry Fair in 2021. This press release comes from the Strawberry Fair Committee.
I am sorry to tell you that Strawberry Fair will not happen in 2021
Strawberry Fair has been a major part of the cultural life of the city since 1974 and has the distinction of being the largest free, one-day, independent, volunteer run Festival in the UK. Traditionally held on the first Saturday in June on Midsummer Common, the Fair is a much loved fixture of the Cambridge calendar.
Through heatwaves, torrential downpours and partial flooding of the Common the Fair has gone ahead, bringing a feast of music, arts, stalls and sheer entertainment whatever the weather. In 2020 the Covid lockdown meant that the Fair could not happen and, to fill the gap left by the Fair, the Fair put on the Award Winning Virtual Fair in conjunction with Cambridge 105 while the all-volunteer committee behind the Fair worked towards Strawberry Fair 2021.
By this time of year the committee would be booking performers, booking the first of many traders, placing orders for infrastructure from toilets to marquees to stages and so much more and contacting all of our fantastic volunteers who come to the Common every year to form the crew and to steward the Fair. The committee has had to ask itself whether it should do that while not knowing whether the Fair was actually going to happen.
These are unprecedented times and no-one can predict what things will look like in June, what restrictions will still be in place and what measures Festivals of all kinds will need to put in place in order to go ahead in a safe way. It may be the case that this will not be known until the spring and that would not allow the volunteer committee the proper time to respond and shape the Fair to meet what may be required. Despite the beginnings of good news, it is entirely possible that there will be some level of restrictions in place until well into the summer.
One of the joys of Strawberry Fair is that it is open to anyone and everyone, to walk around, shop at the hundreds of stalls, to mingle and mix, to hug old friends (and new ones), to dance and enjoy. Limiting the number of people who can come to the Fair would mean that it would no longer be the Strawberry Fair that we all know and love. This, more than the costs involved in Covid related restrictions, is why we have decided to not hold the Fair in 2021 and focus on making Strawberry Fair 2022 one to remember, a celebration of creativity in our city as we, hopefully, move out of the shadow of Covid.
We know that this will be a huge disappointment to everyone who was looking forward to starting the summer of 2021 with Strawberry Fair and perhaps an even bigger disappointment to the traders and suppliers who have their own strong links to the Fair and are very much a part of the Strawberry Fair family.
The Strawberry Fair volunteers are already working on other things (not least the famous Cambridge Band Competition) that we may be able to do over the summer of 2021(watch this space!!) and, of course, on the return of Strawberry Fair in the summer of 2022.
STRABERRY-FAIR.ORG.UK
straberry-fair.org.uk
