Coronavirus
It is with sadness that we have decided to cancel Wonderwool this year. This has not been an easy decision as we have already put a lot of work & money into organising the show and know that we will be disappointing lots of people as we are disappointed ourselves. However we do not want to put our staff, exhibitors or visitors at risk, so this is really the only decision we could make in the circumstances.
We had hoped to be able to arrange another date but the only one the Royal Welsh Showground had available would have conflicted with the Perth Yarn Festival and we did not think it would be fair on either party if we tried to reschedule to this date. We shall therefore cancel for this year and run the show next year on the 24th & 25th April 2021.
We hope that all those exhibitors accepted for this year’s show will be able to join us in 2021. We are also hoping that the Woolschools tutors will be able to teach the same classes next year in which case you will be welcome to carry forward your booking to 2021.
With regard to refunds, if you would like to run your ticket booking over to next year it would be appreciated as we have obviously incurred booking charges on all bookings, otherwise we will issue refunds. The ticketing company is working on the system so that you will be able to go back in and either request a refund or roll your ticket over to 2021, this will take them a few days so please be patient and give them time to add the facility in.
It is a worrying time for all of us, especially as so many costs have been incurred before the show which obviously now won’t be recovered from show revenue. We have no insurance for cancelling because of a disease that none of us had heard of three months ago. Moreover, the government has not banned mass gatherings; we have made this decision ourselves in the light of Monday evening’s advice on reducing social interaction. We thought it was only fair to make the decision now so that everybody would know exactly where they are, rather than waiting to see what happens and maybe having to cancel even nearer the event. We have never had to cancel before – even in the worst weather the show has still gone ahead and people have made a real effort to attend. All we can do is support each other however we can and look forward to next year’s event.
We do have a Wonderwool Wales facebook group and are looking at encouraging people to join and become involved over the weekend of the event, sharing projects they are working on & having discussions. A similar thing is also being investigated for Ravelry. We know that some of our exhibitors are keen to have an online presence over the weekend with offers & demonstrations etc and our web site has links to their sites so you can join in with events & offers they are putting on over the Wonderwool weekend. Obviously having incurred considerable costs already we do not want to incur any further expense this year, so running & manning social media pages for the whole weekend is out of the question but we will dip in and out.
We are sure you are all as disappointed as we are that Wonderwool Wales is cancelled for this year, but we feel it is in everyone’s health interest that we do not hold the event. Take care and we look forward to seeing you all in 2021.
