Barclays/Barclaycard suspend sponsorship of major UK festivals, including Latitude, following artist-led boycott

Following a major artist-led boycott, Barclays/Barclaycard are no longer sponsoring several prominent UK festivals, including Latitude, Download and the Isle of Wight Festival.

Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Barclays stated that the bank "was asked and has agreed to suspend participation" in the festivals for 2024.

The UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign group have urged people to boycott the bank, which they claim "is bankrolling Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians through its financial ties with arms companies that sell weapons to Israel."

According to the PSC's latest research, Barclays "now invests over £2 billion in, and provides financial services worth £6.1 billion to, companies arming Israel."

The Bands Boycott Barclays group – made up of musicians and music industry professionals – was established in response, to "stand in solidarity with Palestine by boycotting all music festivals partnered with Barclays."

Last month, The Great Escape festival in Brighton was boycotted by many artists due to its ties to Barclays, with over a third of the acts on the festival's line-up pulling out. Multiple acts have also pulled out of this weekend's Download Festival in Leicestershire.

The latest focus of the boycott campaign has been Latitude, which is returning to Henham Park in Suffolk from July 25-28. Numerous Irish acts, including CMAT, Pillow Queens and THUMPER announced that they were pulling out of the festival, while Lankum stated this week that they and other acts on the bill had "signed a letter asking the festival to drop the bank".

Earlier this week, the words 'barclaycard presents' featured prominently on both Latitude and the Isle of Wight Festival's websites. Barclaycard was also listed on both homepages as the festivals' 'headline sponsor'. Today, however, all references to Barclaycard have been removed.

Bands Boycott Barclays have described the news as "a historic victory for the Palestinian-led global BDS movement".

"Musicians have destroyed Barclays’ dual strategy of financing genocide in Palestine while advertising its brand and 'customer perks' at British music festivals," the group wrote on Instagram this afternoon. "This is the power of solidarity, collective action and the dedicated global commitment to do all we can for Palestinian liberation."

 

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