With a massive, star-studded lineup to this weekend’s Y Not Festival including headliners Two Door Cinema Club, Frank Turner, Clean Bandit, The Vaccines, Declan McKenna and King Kong Company, Y Not Festival in Derbyshire was shaping up to be a standout for the summer, but the weather had other plans. The festival managed to push through before officially calling it quits on Sunday, despite Friday’s headliners The Vaccines backing out because of the weather conditions. The band apologised to their fans on social media, but explained that they were told that it was “unsafe” to perform in the extreme weather.
The event was officially called off on Sunday as festival organisers released a statement, saying, “Unfortunately we’ve had to take the difficult decision to cancel Sunday due to the adverse weather conditions across the weekend, after consulting all the relevant authorities. “The safety of our guests, performers and crew is our primary concern and the potential risk was too severe for Sunday to go ahead. We are very sorry for the disappointment and disruption caused to everyone who was looking forward to the final day of the festival.
“We understand that people will have questions about refunds. We will be giving all our guests further information about this over the coming days.”
Disappointed attendees took to Twitter and Facebook to express their frustration, with one attendee, Amy Osborne, saying, “This was my first festival for nine years and I can safely say I will never come back. You have totally ruined my weekend. I expect a refund.”
The scene was thoroughly documented on Instagram and Twitter, and was even called “apocalyptic.”

Definitely Rock N Roll camping for these people in the mud, YNOT #music #matlock #derbyshire #ynot #ynot2017 #ynotfestival #camping #muddy #mud #festival

A post shared by Lee Howdle (@leehowdle) on Jul 30, 2017 at 11:07am PDT

sums up the weekend ? #ynotfestival

A post shared by Scarlett Bielecka (@scarlettbielecka) on Jul 30, 2017 at 11:07am PDT

Y tho??‘? #cancelled #ynotfestival

A post shared by Rhiann? (@rhiannpridd) on Jul 30, 2017 at 4:21am PDT

Jesus came to @Y_Not_Festival - he's gone missing, presumed taken by the mud. This is all we found #prayforjesusswimminginmud pic.twitter.com/UGb0RHlMKN

— Adam McDermott (@admcdermott) July 29, 2017

Managing director of Ground Control, the company in charge of the event, John Drape, told the BBC that they had made every effort to control the situation before it became unmanageable, explaining that they had as much as 80 tons of wood chips on hand, which are meant to absorb ground water and stabilise muddy terrain. “We have meetings every six hours to discuss things like weather conditions and ground conditions,” Drape explained. “On Saturday night it became increasingly clear conditions were deteriorating and at midnight there was not one agency which felt it was safe to continue.”
Festival goers are demanding full refunds for the event, and Y Not’s team have assured customers that they will be providing info regarding refunds in the next few days.