Gaiety Musical Theatre Festival 30 April 2023 at Ragley Hall

So surprised (and happy) this not yet another Londoncentric thing

Postponed until next year now. No reason given.
Guessing it’s lack of ticket sales….

Cancelled. Again. Second year running. No explanation.

Not quite true. On The Stage website there is an interesting piece where the producer blames waterlogged fields. However a few weeks ago on a totally separate Facebook page someone was looking for a new sponsor as one had pulled out although claiming ticket sales were really good. So clearly there are at least two stories here and lots of people out of pocket a second time. People and businesses had been trying to get communication with the producers for weeks with no success so all very dodgy.

Quite why the producer would tell The Stage about waterlogged fields but not state that in the official announcement is peculiar. It also seems some of the participants were told a week ago it wasn't happening but the website but it took another week to tell everyone else and tickets were still available.

I suspect we'll hear no more about Mike Wilson Productions (at least not in a good way).

Sadly, after last year's cancellation many of us suspected it might happen again so this was no surprise.

Yes it's an odd concept isn't it? If you're a theatre fan, you go to the theatre. Not to a field somewhere for a festival which is essentially a less theatrical version of the thing you like.

I mean, sure, but West End Live is kind of right in the middle of the West End.

I saw the advert for this and was interested but for me the issues were:
1. A great list of performers but not necessarily ones I would want to stand in a field to listen to.
2. Location - not the easiest to get to, limited public transport options and would probably mean an overnight stay somewhere close by, but that then would be a car ride.
3. Timing - hold an outdoor festival in late June / July / August and you have a fighting chance of the weather being warm and dry. Less so in April.
4. The names on the bill were ones known to us who have a knowledge of musical theatre. Not well enough names to appeal to the non core audience, and also, out of those of us who are in the target demographic, how many of us are fans enough of the individual performers to overlook all the other issues?

I really do applaud the promoters for trying this and there probably is a time and place for this kind of festival. I just don’t think this was it.

Still a big difference between a free concert held right in amongst all the theatres on a Saturday and having to travel all the way out to a remote location for a "festival" in the country. And was MusicalCon actually successful financially?

Clearly there isn't a market for these festivals otherwise they'd be selling out and doing great business and not being cancelled.