London’s Notting Hill Carnival has confirmed it won’t be running in 2021.
Notting Hill Carnival had run every year since 1966 until it was forced to cancel last year due to the pandemic, and this will be the second year in its history that the event has been unable to take place.
Although their annual in-person street carnival cannot go ahead, the organisers have said they are planning other events that will “allow everyone to safely celebrate.”
Making their announcement on social media, Notting Hill Carnival’s official statement reads:“This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make, everyone involved in the event desperately wants a return to the road where carnival belongs but safety has to come first and with the latest cautious announcement on the government’s road map, this is the only way to ensure that.”
“In making this decision, we have considered our responsibilities to deliver a safe, spectacular, successful and sustainable carnival. The conclusion is that with so much uncertainty, with time short for carnivalists to prepare and the risk of eventual cancellation a real possibility, we must refocus our efforts for 2021.”
Matthew Phillip is one of the event’s organisers, and earlier in the year he warned that things like social distancing could make it hard for the event to go ahead, when he gave the statement saying: “It would be very difficult to hold Carnival in its traditional format on the streets with social distancing in place. It would be devastating for a second year in a row.”
You can read the organisers full cancellation statement below…
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