Wireless Festival moves to London’s Finsbury Park

nme.com:

Wireless Festival has moved to London’s Finsbury Park – and will now take place there every summer until 2027.Despite the opposition of having the festival occur at the famous park, Haringey Council signed a five-year deal with Festival Republic, the promoter of Wireless, claiming that the event will raise “significant income’ for North London as well as boost the local economy.Wireless was previously arranged on a year-by-year basis with past venues including Hyde Park, Harewood House and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The festival, which draws up to 50,000 people a day, has been held annually in Finsbury Park since 2014 except for 2020-2021 due to COVID restrictions.The deal also gives Festival Republic permission to hold a second weekend of major events in the park.

In addition, two days of free community events will take place.The local group Friends of Finsbury Park, opposed the festival’s move claiming that there would be no benefit to the local people and added that there would be less oversight of the event.

They have previously complained about noise levels, drug taking and anti-social behaviour at the festival and attempted to stop the events.Haringey Council stated that the new deal will guarantee income to fund the park’s upkeep even though they admitted in a report that the deal would actually “reduce the income level received”.Friends of Finsbury Park claim that the five-year-deal between Haringey Council and Wireless festival is “about money, not culture” referring to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.The group shared: “Evidently, council budgets are tight.