Rescheduled event postponed to May 2021

Despite our very best efforts and mitigation planning, we no longer believe it is feasible to go ahead with the SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ this August, and we are postponing the event until 1st-3rd May 2021.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented situation, resulting in an extremely challenging and uncertain environment for many business and individuals. Despite our very best efforts, we no longer believe it is feasible to go ahead with the rearranged event this August. We would like to thank all our participants for their patience and trust as we have worked with the various event stakeholders to come to this decision. It has not been easy.

We wanted to communicate this news as early as possible to allow everyone to focus on what’s important right now, avoid any further uncertainty and minimise our participants costs. We are mindful of the impact this will have on our community of participants, suppliers, freelancers and event volunteers.

We are also making other cancellations and postponements to our remaining 2020 calendar of events and will not be organising any further events this year. We recognise that this is a very demanding time for many people and businesses, and the events industry among many others is going to be massively impacted by the Coronavirus outbreak.

We will be contacting all the participants directly by email to clearly lay out their options. This will be a choice between a transfer to the 2021 edition, a credit, a charitable donation or refund. 

We would now like to take the opportunity to explain in more detail the key reasons why we have decided to postpone the event to May 2021:

Health and Safety 

The health and safety of everyone involved with the SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ trumps all other considerations and quite simply, we believe the only responsible decision at this point in time is to cancel the event. Our health and safety considerations include not just the participant and event team but also the rural host communities that will inevitably interact with the event. As it stands today, the Covid-19 public health restrictions would prevent an event like the SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ from taking place. There is currently no clear road map for unlocking these restrictions.

Travel Restrictions

On a practical level there are still travel restrictions within the UK, within Europe and mandatory quarantine for inbound travellers to the UK. If we were to go ahead there would be a large number of people who currently would be unable to attend through no fault of their own. The SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ attracts people from across the UK and Europe each year. At this point in time, we do not believe it is responsible to encourage unnecessary travel and intermingling of people. Additionally, we do not believe it is reasonable to expect participants to finalise their travel arrangements (incurring more costs), when the event remains at the mercy of international government policies focused on reducing the spread of the pandemic.

Spirit of the Event

The SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ is famous for its relaxed, fun and welcoming atmosphere, and clearly the evolving situation with the Covid-19 outbreak will overshadow this key element of the event. Looking forward to 2021, we would hope that there is a greater possibility that the event could be run in its usual format allowing for a fun and sociable atmopshere. However, we will of course always take into account any government guidelines if some form of social distancing for events is still required in 2021.

Risk Minimisation

Whilst we recognise that it might just be possible to organise an event later this year, this would almost certainly only be possible with many Covid-19 mitigation regulations and rules in place. Whilst these would certainly dampen the atmosphere of the event, they would also add unknown compliance costs. Combined with the normal costs relating to the event, the risk that the Covid-19 restrictions may still not allow the event to take place at all, the risk that many participants may be unwilling or prevented from travelling to the event, we risk making a terrible commercial situation even worse by simply hoping we can make the event work. Therefore, the most prudent course of action is one of risk minimisation so that we can ensure Ourea Events is still in business next year.

As ever, thanks for placing your trust in us and we really hope to see you at the 2021 SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ on its usual early May bank holiday weekend, 1st-3rd May 2021.