Organisers 'devastated' as New Mills lantern parade is cancelled

The New Mills lantern parade and street party will not be going ahead on Saturday September 24 as the event has become too big to manage safely.

New Mills Festival director Lyn Bannister said: “I have been waking up several times in the night for the last two weeks worrying about how we are going to safely put on the lantern parade and we hadn’t found a solution so sadly we had to cancel.

"I am beyond upset. I am devastated and I know so many other people will be too.”

The lantern parade started more than 20 years ago as a free event and has grown considerably over the years.

In 2019, organisers decided to start selling tickets at just £1 to be able to control numbers for the event and the procession and street party is capped at 7,500 tickets.

Lyn said: “We have gotten so big it has become too much for the small team of volunteers to manage and we have imploded.”

Last week she made a desperate plea for more volunteers to come forward and help marshal the event in the Torrs and even reached out to a paid events companies asking them to help out but was told the project was too big to pass over in short time.

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Lyn said: “There is no blame with the community, we have a fantastic community here in New Mills and I know everyone does what they can to help out and for that I am so thankful.

“We didn’t have the resources to deliver the procession and street party safely and we have a duty of care to everyone attending to ensure we can put on a safe event.

“I feel so guilty and feel I have let everyone down but we had to do the right thing to keep everyone safe.”

Lyn says she and the committee are not giving up and are looking to the future.

She added: “We are now going to think long and hard about how we go forward in a sustainable and manageable way with the procession.”

Anyone who bought a paper ticket can claim a refund for the face value of the ticket at New Mills Post Office.

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