Hampstead’s Shhh Festival cancelled

A Hampstead music festival celebrating the power of quiet music has been cancelled.

The fourth annual Shhh festival was due to take place on April 30 at the Heath Street Baptist Church but poor ticket sales led to organisers cancelling the event.

Shhh Festival founder Howard Monk wrote on the festival website: “It’s with a heavy heart that I have made this decision and I’ve taken a couple of weeks to get to it.

“I’ve been monitoring the ticket sales on a daily basis and they’re just not justifying going ahead. I’ll stand to lose too much money by going ahead with the show.

“I’ll still lose a bunch of money by cancelling, but less than if we go ahead.

“The truth is that I would have been happy to go ahead and lose a ‘bit’ of money if the event was looking likely to be busy and fun, but it doesn’t suggest even that will be the case so I’m putting the stops on this now, before it goes any further.

“I’ve not done this before as I’ve had something of a gung-ho attitude to our events, but I simply can’t afford to lose out any more, so this is the best step.”

Monk spoke to Etcetera last week to promote the festival, saying: “We want to get people talking about the benefit of shutting up and listening, in life in general.”