“Gon-isphere!” read the headline in The Comet. After three successful years, our music festival Sonisphere has been cancelled for 2012. A victim of the economy? An overcrowded summer of events? Too late to announce its acts? Or simply beaten by a better bill at its rival festival, Download, at Donnington Park? We don’t know. Personally, I preferred our prospective Sonisphere bill – it would have been wonderful to have seen Queen return to Knebworth Park for the first time since their triumphant last ever concert with Freddie Mercury in 1986 – but it wasn’t to be. And it’s a blow – not only to us, but also to the numerous other businesses in the area that benefit from these summer events. It is Sonisphere – as an annual festival – that gave us the confidence to embark on our new Gift Shop and tackle the long-planned extension to our Barns banqueting facility.
But there is a silver lining to this cloud over an already cloudy summer. The promoters of Sonisphere say they will return in 2013 – and for this summer, they are still bringing the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Knebworth Park for a one-off concert on Saturday 23rd June. This promises to be a happy event – and I meet many friends and neighbours who are very much looking forward to it. It will be smaller than a traditional Knebworth Park concert, in the region of 50,000 rather than our capacity licence of 125,000. We don’t anticipate any unusual delays or disturbance in Knebworth village, but if you have any questions please contact us – either in advance at the Estate Office, or on the weekend via the promoter’s resident contact number 0203 328 9830. As midsummer weekend, let’s hope the summer has started by then!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com