A record 16,000 came in July, but the free festival will not return in 2027. Costs went from £11,000 to over £25,000, and 10 of 100 volunteers showed up.

South Norwood Community Festival will not happen in 2027, after 15 years. The organisers have announced the cancellation on their own website, and the two reasons they give are money and people.

The statement opens: “It is with huge regret that we announce that South Norwood Community Festival 2027 is not able to go ahead.”

This year’s festival, Party in the Park on Sunday 5 July, was the biggest it has ever been. More than 16,000 people came, a record.

The cost of putting it on has more than doubled

The organisers say funding opportunities have been lost while costs have risen sharply, because of what their statement calls “the hoops we have had to jump through to make sure that we were compliant with local and national legislation and council licensing requirements”.

Bar chart of South Norwood Community Festival costs. 2019, 11,000 pounds. 2026, around 21,000 pounds. 2027 projected, well over 25,000 pounds
What it costs to stage a free festival in South Norwood Recreation Ground. Chart by Croydon Today, from the organisers' statement.

In 2019, the festival cost £11,000 to stage. This year the final bill will be around £21,000. Next year was projected at well over £25,000.

Set against that, the organisers point out what the day returns. At 16,000 visitors, this year’s festival worked out at around £1.25 a head, while “putting thousands back into charities, local businesses and the area”. The festival raffle raises money for St Christopher’s Hospice.

Twenty committee members became four

The second reason is harder to fix with a grant.

The festival is run entirely by volunteers. At its peak, the organisers say, it had 20 active committee members, backed by a further 10 outside businesses giving their time free. Between them they covered a long list of jobs:

  • grant applications, fundraising and sponsor relations
  • planning, CAD drawings and day to day admin
  • bookkeeping
  • health and safety and electrical inspections
  • sound, bands and stallholder management
  • security and counter terrorism
  • marketing and social media

This year there were four.

The day itself needs around 25 people giving a couple of hours each. The organisers put more than 100 people through the training they say is now legally required for festival volunteers. On the day, 10 turned up.

They looked at charging, and decided against it

The committee spent the last month working through the options, including charging a nominal fee at the gate. They rejected it on two grounds. It would have added another layer of complexity to an already complex event, and it would have needed significantly more volunteers to run the gates, which is the thing they do not have.

It also cut against the point of the festival. Free and open for everyone to attend is, in their words, the core value of SNCFest.

“We are and will remain very proud of what we were able to achieve over the last 15 years,” the statement says, “a free, community-led and -run festival for the community.”

What it means for you

The festival has been the largest free event in this corner of the borough, held in South Norwood Recreation Ground, the 14-acre park beside Norwood Junction station. Its main entrance is on Cargreen Road, three minutes from the station.

  • If you had 2027 in your diary, there is nothing to go to. Stallholder booking for next year was due to reopen this month and will not now happen.
  • If you are a stallholder or sponsor, the organisers have not announced any transfer to another event, and no replacement has been proposed by anyone else.
  • If you want to help, nothing in the statement rules out a future festival under different organisers. The scale of what would be needed is set out plainly: around 25 trained volunteers on the day, a committee of roughly 20, and £25,000.
  • Cargreen Road and Lawrence Road were closed to traffic on festival day each year, and Croydon’s ANPR cameras on Holmesdale Road, Elm Park Road and Albert Road stay live regardless. Those closures will not apply next July.

The festival is run by South Norwood Community Festival CIC, a community interest company registered in May 2024, company number 15734444. The event itself is older than the company, and has run for 15 years.

For what is still on across the borough, see our guide to things to do in Croydon.

Sources