Harry Potter fans: lament. The event so many of you had been looking forward to has been cancelled after it gained too much attention.
Organisers of the three-day wizarding extravaganza - which had been scheduled to take place in Bearsden on June 23 to 25 - said they have been “blown away” by the enthusiasm for the festival but have had to call it off because of a variety of issues.
In a statement, they said: “We want to make it work but we now need much more time to do so.
“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.”
To celebrate 20 years since J. K. Rowling’s ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ was first published, locals had come together to turn the town into a spellbinding festival.
Butterbeer and Potter burgers were to be made available at a great Forbidden Forest BBQ, and there was also to be a special Room of Requirement at Café Crème in New Kirk Road.
Fantastic beasts would have been making an appearance and a Quidditch tournament and Harry Potter service was also set to take place with many other events lined up around the town.
The Herald reported on the event on Saturday and readers quickly showed enthusiasm for it: within hours, our Facebook post received almost 10,000 reactions, comments, and shares.
As fans from across the country and Europe became spellbound, organisers reminded them on Tuesday that it’s a “local event” and not “something like T in the Park.”
“We never imagined - foolishly perhaps - that people would be prepared to travel from down south and across from Ireland and even from the Netherlands for a Harry Potter festival," said organisers.
“We are absolutely going to be running a Harry Potter festival but we don’t want people to be disappointed in what they find,” they added before cancelling.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here