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Mayor cancels Rise music festival in Finsbury Park (From Haringey Independent)
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Mayor cancels Rise music festival in Finsbury Park
6:35pm Wednesday 8th April 2009
MAYOR of London Boris Johnson has cancelled a popular anti-racism music festival held in Finsbury Park because of lack of sponsorship.
The Rise Festival, set up in 1996, has been touted as Europe’s biggest free music concert and attracted a crowd of up to 100,000 last year.
Big names like Jimmy Cliff, Run DMC, The Wailers and The Specials have all played at the event.
Mr Johnson sparked outrage last year when he removed the explicit anti-racism message in favour of “celebrating diversity” not long after being elected.
The main sponsors, trade unions Unison and Unite, withdrew their funding, leaving the mayor’s office to pay the £551,000 to stage the event.
A spokesman for the mayor said: “Without a major sponsor in place, it is not considered appropriate to spend such a large amount on a single music event, particularly during a recession.”
Mr Johnson said GLA funding would now be used for a London-wide event called Rhythm of London, focusing on music education for young people on July 10 and 11.
Liberal Democrat councillor Ed Butcher, who represents Stroud Green mourned the loss of the “highlight” of the community’s calender.
He warned local businesses would suffer.
Former mayor Ken Livingstone said it was understandable that trade unions had withdrawn sponsorship if the festival no longer held its original meaning.
He said: “The cancellation of London’s anti-racist music festival is a blow to good community relations in the city. Rise was the biggest anti-racist festival in Europe and on that basis attracted significant sponsorship.
“It lost much of this when Boris Johnson dropped the central anti-racist message last year. It is no surprise that Boris Johnson is now cancelling the festival altogether.”
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Massive blow: crowds enjoying Rise Festival in Finsbury Park last year
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Trev Caughie, Edgware says...
7:55pm Fri 10 Apr 09
In past Rise events, we have been forced to watch as an army of left-wing political activist groups have detracted from the musical celebrations with endless sloganeering and political baggage. Among the groups that dominated the festival during the Livingstone era were the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Socialist Workers Party and CND. In particular the Cuba Solidarity Campaign was banned from the 2008 Rise festival for their habit of accosting celebrants at the festival to hand out leaflets, sell newspapers and rattle donation buckets while continually proclaiming Fidel Castro a hero. And this at YOUR expense?
Johnson obviously thought this could not continue. So he changed the emphasis of the festival and ousted the heavy-handed propaganda mongerers. There were signs at last year's festival that this was working. In Livingstone's time the Rise festival attracted an audience that was approximately 70% white, but 2008's had around 10% more ethnic attendees than previous years. Why? Because people don't want to be lectured to on a day out; they want to have fun. Fun may have been all that was on Boris's agenda for Rise 2008, but it wasn't on the trade unions'. And this is a much more likely reason for their pulling back.
So cut Boris a break, and refocus your irritation where it really belongs; the hyper-activists who simply see Rise as a chance to hector us and proselytise. It is they who have killed Rise, not Boris.