The organisers of National Hamfest (National Hamfest (Lincoln) Limited) have reported that they have had to cancel the 2023 Hamfest due to problems with the alternative venue at the East of England Showground in Peterborough. A statement on the Natonal Hamfest website reads:
It is with a sad heart that we have to advise that the National Hamfest team have reluctantly had to cancel the 2023 National Hamfest event.
Unfortunately we have been hit with several curved balls this year.
Firstly, our temporary move to Peterborough in October was cancelled by the venue themselves, which has meant finding a new venue or and a new date. A new venue has proved impossible to find at short notice. We have negotiated some revised dates in July at Newark but after many discussions we have reached the conclusion that the school & family holidays were a problem for traders big and small. We are also unsure how many of the attendees would also be unable to attend for the same reasons. Finally, we looked at the financial impact and concluded it was not viable to run the event with the reduced trade attendees and the risk of reduced footfall.
I can assure you all, we haven’t made this decision lightly. However we are pleased to confirm that we hope to put on a bigger and better event in 2024 at the Newark Showground on our more usual dates of the 27 & 28 September. Please put the date in your diary now and we hope to see you there.
This information was issued as a TWEET at 14:58 on 13 March 2023 and has been repeated on the RSGB Website.
The organisers hope to hold the event in 2024, but they had a clear commitment to holding an event in 2023 so how much weight can be given to a mere “hope” is unclear at the moment. In these post-COVID times, given that some traders who had previously supported National Hamfest before Covid were not present in 2022 and the decision by other traders to scale back their presence in 2022 to essentially a virtual stand, the continued viability of one of the country’s largest rallies could be called into question.
As a footnote; we hope that the organisers of Railways on the Air (Bishop Auckland Radio Amateur Club) take note of the proposed 2024 dates since the “Railways on the Air” event traditionally takes place on the weekend closest to 27 September which would be 28/29 September 2024 exactly when National Hamfest is scheduled to return!
