THE director of a Ryedale festival which was cancelled just weeks before it was due to take place has not ruled out the possibility of the event returning next year.

The Parklands festival, held at Duncombe Park, Helmsley, was due to be headlined by acts including The Proclaimers and Badly Drawn Boy across the August Bank Holiday weekend but organisers said that advance ticket sales had not met projections and as results they were forced to cancel it.

In a statement released on their website, they said: “Advance ticket sales have not met projections and we cannot proceed without certainty that all event costs will be met.

“While we have faced many challenges in recent months, the overwhelming mood is one of love and support for our festival – a wonderful event which has brought so much joy and inspiration to so many.

“We are hugely grateful to all the performers, traders and crew as well as to members of the management team who have given so much of their time and energy to the festival. While this is a sad ending, they should all feel proud of the huge achievements we have made over the past ten years.”

However festival director James Houston has said that although the future of the festival has not yet been discussed there is support there for it to continue.

He said: “It’s early days and our board has not yet had a chance to meet to discuss the future but there seems to be a growing body of support for the festival’s renaissance.

“Personally I’d be acutely disappointed if this was the end. We have assembled a great team of talented people over the years.”

Last year the festival made headlines for owing traders thousands of pounds from the event. Stallholders claimed they were owed more than £100,000 by organisers Galtres Festival Trading Ltd, which went into liquidation.

Earlier this year Mr Houston said that everyone would be repaid and The Foundation had set up a new operating company to run this year’s event which was “smaller and lower risk”.

Many stallholders had been invited back to this year’s event as organisers said they were committed to rectifying last year’s financial issues.

The online statement said: “We put together a tremendous programme of music and performing arts at a fraction of the cost of previous years and fully expected this year’s event to more than break even.

“We were determined to put things straight financially and countless people have toiled tirelessly to plan and promote the event. We did everything we could, yet that wasn’t enough.”

Mr Houston said : “We are very keen to meet all liabilities rather than leave anyone out of pocket. So many thousands of people have had such tremendous times at our festival over the years, it would be a terrible shame not to build on that .”

The organisers said that they would be contacting people who had bought advance tickets on how to claim a refund.