Peter Taylor & Daniel Cuffe, Co Founders of the Lytham Festival have sent this communication to the resident focus group members

‘As a valued member of the Lytham Festival – Resident Focus Group, we want to personally update you on our plans for the festival in 2024.

You will be aware that in 2023 we secured a Premises License to accommodate 22,500 festival goers on Lytham Green for two of our five nights of concerts. Our previous (and current) licence allows for 20,000 festival goers each night. Following the trial of this increased capacity when we reached the full 22,500 capacity on Friday 1st July 2023, we carried out a detailed assessment of the impact. We sought advice and feedback from the Safety Advisory Group (who are made up of blue light services, environmental health, and health and safety personnel from the local authority). In addition, with Fylde Borough Council, we jointly commissioned an Impact Assessment which was carried out by a third-party consultancy and market research company. Feedback was generally very positive and included learnings and comments which will help make the experience even more positive in future years. We were delighted to share some of these learnings and improvements planned for 2024 at the last focus group.

Following receipt of the Lytham Festival 2023 Impact Report, which is being published jointly between ourselves and Fylde Borough Council this Thursday, we have decided to move forward with a new application for a Premises Licence for a capacity of 25,000 people each day. We are required to do this as our licence for 2023 permitted our increase to 22,500 for one year only.

We encourage you to read the Lytham Festival 2023 Impact Report which we will send to you when it is published on Thursday morning. The report highlights evidential statistical information and findings following a detailed survey of residents, businesses and visitors.

There are also learnings from the report that we will use to continue to shape the future of the festival and benchmark our progress.

At our previous licensing application hearing it was suggested we needed to be more ‘up front’. Therefore, we are making our plans public from day one. On Thursday the notice of the Premises Licence Application will be published on our website and it will be available via Fylde Borough Council. We will also publish the Impact Assessment in full and issue a press release.

We do hope you will support the plan for the increased capacity. We appreciate you will have your own views and opinions and we do not seek to influence these beyond asking you to consider the full report. The Licensing Process remains a fully public consultation process and you can make any views (both for and against ) from this Friday, once the application is submitted via the Licensing Department at Fylde Borough Council and notices published online and around the festival site.

We are writing to you personally ahead of this becoming public as you have afforded us as the organisers your time to make the festival a better experience. We didn’t want you to hear the news second hand or via social media!

We would point out our application for a Premises Licence falls into the fees bracket 20,000 – 29,999. You will note from the application that we have included a proposed Condition on our licence that the maximum number of attendees permitted at any one time is 25,000. I know this caused some confusion last time, so we wanted to assure you that this is our intention, and it will also be made clear on the Public Notice displayed at the site, once the application has been submitted.

May we take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support of the Focus Group and we will be back in touch with you on Thursday morning.

Yours faithfully,
Peter Taylor & Daniel Cuffe
Co Founders, Lytham Festival’