‍Standon Calling Festival in Hertfordshire was forced to cancel halfway through its final day on Sunday, 25 July, after thunderstorms, torrential rain and serious flooding prevented acts including Primal Scream, De La Soul, Craig David and Sophie Ellis Bextor from performing at the 17,000 capacity event.

Just before 5pm during Jake Bugg’s set, the audience was evacuated from the main stage area due to a risk of lightning. The event was then paused for four hours before organisers announced it was unsafe to resume. Attendees were then asked to leave the site as soon as possible.

Roads surrounding the site were blocked for hours due to the floods as ticket holders tried to leave the site. They have today been told they can return to the site to collect their belongings.

Independently owned by Alex Trenchard, the festival celebrated its 15th anniversary this year and went ahead despite no cancelation insurance being available and the festival not being part of the Government’s Events Research Programme like Festival Republic’s Latitude (cap. 40,000) and Superstruck’s Tramlines (40,000), which took place over the same weekend.

A negative pre-event Covid lateral flow test was a prerequisite for attending Standon Calling, mirroring similar processes seen at the Government’s test events.