Press release from John Tallon:

Unfortunately the 2010 Great North Festival ran at a loss of over £6,000.00, mainly due to lack of support. We have spent the last couple of months trying to find ways of making savings in order to enable us to run the festival again in 2011, and have come to the conclusion that there is no way that we can run a six day all live music festival on the present level of support. We would have to increase our income on ticket sales by 20% just to break even and with the present economic situation that would not appear to be the answer.

We have no intention of diluting the quality of the festival by introducing artists with backing tracks or any other cost savings that would change the nature of what we consider the festival should be.

We have operated the festival for 20 years with both management and staff working on a voluntary basis and could not bare the thought of ending up in a debt situation, with some bills not being paid and we do not have the personal finances to subsidise any loss.

Therefore we have come to the decision not to run the festival in 2011.

We know that this will be a great disappointment to a lot of people who have supported us over the years, but I hope they will appreciate the reasons for this decision. At the present we have not ruled out running the event again in 2012 by which time we will have had more time to consider all the possibilities and ways of raising funds.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank every one who has supported the festival over the years, all the artists who have given us some great performances many of which where exclusive to the Great North Festival, and a special thanks to our wonderful voluntary staff who have helped us to keep the festival running for 20 years. We also wish to thank John Toulson and family for their help and support which has been a big factor in keeping the festival going at Barnard Castle.

Best wishes to all involved in country music

Margie, John, &: Family