Peter Gabriel announces that WOMAD will take a year off in 2025 before returning in “new home” in 2026

nme.com:

Peter Gabriel has announced that his WOMAD festival will be taking a break next year, before returning to a new location for 2026.WOMAD, which stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance, was founded by Gabriel in 1980 with the aim of spotlighting an eclectic mixture of genres.

Since then, the festival has travelled to 27 countries across the world, while the main UK event has taken place in Charlton Park in Wiltshire since 2007.This year was its 42nd edition and, as announced today (November 5), it’s last in Charlton Park.In a statement, Gabriel has shared that, after 17 years in Wiltshire, WOMAD is “moving to a new home” that is “not far” from the current site. “To ensure that the festival can continue to thrive for years to come in our new location, we have decided to take a year off in 2025 before returning fully charged in 2026,” he added.Gabriel went on to say: “WOMAD, like many festivals and events, has seen some challenges post-COVID and we are now engaged in the process of re-evaluating, regenerating and reinvigorating everything we do – and where we want to go in the future.

We’re delighted to say we’ll be announcing our new plans over the next few weeks.”It follows the festival’s cancellation in 2021 amid the COVID pandemic which, at the time, Gabriel put down to a lack of support from the UK government.

He had previously warned that the event would be cancelled unless the government offered an insurance program.Gabriel has added that multiple WOMAD festivals around the world, “including WOMADelaide, WOMAD New Zealand and WOMAD Cáceres” will still be taking place over the next year, “with plans for further events in Las Palmas, Brazil and Chile” too.