Harry Potter Festival in Bearsden is cancelled

The organisers of a Harry Potter Festival in Bearsden have had to CANCEL the event because they fear that the town will be overrun with excited fans from the UK and overseas.
Bearsden Cross was going to be transformed into Diagon Alley for a Harry Potter Festival but the event has been cancelled now.Bearsden Cross was going to be transformed into Diagon Alley for a Harry Potter Festival but the event has been cancelled now.
Bearsden Cross was going to be transformed into Diagon Alley for a Harry Potter Festival but the event has been cancelled now.

The group of five townsfolk who were co-ordinating the event had safety concerns due to its popularity.

Within days they had received hundreds of messages from people across the globe wanting to go to the festival and they said they would not have enough time to organise everything for this year.

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The event was set to take place in Bearsden Cross over three days one weekend in June.

The plan was to transform the small town into Diagon Alley with Potter burgers, Quidditch matches, Butterbeer and a Room of Requirement.

One of the organisers, Rev Roddy Hamilton from New Kilpatrick Church, Bearsden, said: “We have been totally gobsmacked at the response from people willing to travel from the Netherlands, Ireland, England with an offer of Quidditch teams from Chesters and other places and so many who take on the persona of various Harry Potter characters.

“It really interesting to see how engaged people are with Harry Potter, it is one of the big stories they were brought up with and they want to live it out, yet the whole story behind Harry Potter is one of love and sacrifice which is what we speak about every Sunday in church.”

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A spokesperson for the event on their facebook page, said: “We have been blown away by the enthusiasm for our festival and we want to make it work but we now need much more time to do so and so we have taken the decision to cancel June 23-25th 2017.

“Because it has grown so big we have to sort out safety, parking, capacity and licensing implications and we will not have enough time to do that for this year but want to work on that for some time in the future.

“We are a very small group of five local folk so please understand this has taken on a life of its own which is bigger than we can manage.

“We hope you understand and we know many will be disappointed but after conversations with the police and our local council who have both been incredibly helpful and supportive, we believe this is the right course of action for us but watch this space for the future.”