Recession claims another festival

The Wombats had been due to headline Red List Live in June

A new music festival in Kent, which was to be headlined by The Wombats and The Zutons, has become the latest to be cancelled as a result of the recession.

Staging Red List Live in the current economic climate would have been an "unacceptable risk", organisers said.

Heavenly Planet in Reading, Scotland's Hydro Connect and the Isle of Wight Jazz Festival, have also been scrapped.

But larger festivals are faring well, with tickets for Glastonbury and Reading and Leeds largely sold out.

Weekend tickets for Reading and Leeds, to be headlined by Radiohead, Kings of Leon and the Arctic Monkeys, sold out two days after going on sale on Monday.

Red List Live was due to take place next to Port Lympne Wildlife Park in June, raising money for endangered animal species.

'Troubled and uncertain'

A statement said: "The decision has been made at an early stage, before final acts were booked, promotion began and site work undertaken, as a pragmatic response to current troubled and uncertain financial conditions."

Festival director Eddie Hill said: "We are very upset at having to make such a hard call, however we are confident that we have done what is right for the cause.

"Foremost in our mind was the greater problems it could have created, had we made this decision further down the line."

Dance festival Creamfields, meanwhile, has cut its ticket price in an attempt to attract fans.

Weekend camping tickets for the Cheshire event will be sold for £100 - £15 less than last year.

Creamfields organiser James Barton said: "We're in the midst of a recession, with most people having to tighten their belts, so we've made the first 5,000 tickets as cheap as we possibly can.

"I hope this goes a little way to easing the cash burden for the people who have been there for us through thick and thin."

Other festivals, such as Glastonbury, Sonisphere, Camp Bestival and Global Gathering, have introduced schemes where fans can pay for their tickets in instalments.