T In The Park festival cancelled for 2017

A picture of fans at T In The Park 2015
Fans at T In The Park 2015 (Image credit: Getty)

Organisers of Scotland’s biggest music festival T In The Park have announced it will not go ahead in 2017.

The event moved from its spiritual home of Balado in Kinross to Strathallan in Perthshire in 2015 and remained there this year.

Bosses say that a number of hurdles they have faced has forced them to take a year out to assess the future of T In The Park and so next year’s event – due to be the 24th – will not go ahead.

The move from Balado was down to an oil pipeline that runs under the site and the 2015 switch to Strathallan got off to a bad start when the Scottish Government imposed site restrictions due to the presence of nesting ospreys.

In a statement, T In The Park organisers say: “When we launched back in 1994 there were only two music festivals in the UK - now there are many and T In The Park paved the way for all that have come and gone in Scotland since.

“However, the last couple of years have had their challenges. Against our will, and despite a prolonged fight, we were forced to move from Balado, Kinross in 2015.

“This move was a mammoth task for the event and one that was compounded by a series of onerous site restrictions placed upon us as preparations for the event in 2015 took place.

“The constraints – logistically and financially - that the resulting planning conditions put upon us are simply not workable.

“We tried our best to work with the pressures placed upon the site by bringing in an additional team and fixing the first year traffic issues, but ultimately we’re not in control of the overall site layout and the continued restrictions means that the negative impact on our fans and the limitations placed on their experience is too great.”

They continue: “We now need to take stock and take a year out to try to resolve the issues so that we can once again deliver the kind of camping festival you are used to and deserve.”

Bands including Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Biffy Clyro, Arctic Monkeys and Foo Fighters have headlined T In The Park in the past.

Another Scottish festival, Wickerman, permanently pulled the plug this month.

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Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.