The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is to be moved from Harrogate to Buxton after the organisers claimed the cost of the venue doubled.
The Royal Hall hosted the event annually from 2014, except when it was cancelled due to covid.
It attracted thousands of visitors from around the world and provided a major summer boost for Harrogate’s hospitality sector.
But next year’s 15-day event will be held at Buxton Opera House in Derbyshire from July 29 to August 12 instead.
Bernard Lockett, one of the festival organisers, said:
“Last week, festival directors Janet and Neil Smith were presented with Harrogate Convention Centre‘s new costings for 2023, which would see overall costs double, making the festival in its present form impossible to stage. With no compromises forthcoming, there was sadly no option but to leave the town.
“The decision was not taken lightly. The festival has invested heavily in growing the festival in the town, and we know our visitors, who travel from all around the world every year, will certainly miss Harrogate, and particularly the magnificent Royal Hall.”
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An email from the organisers to festival supporters last week said Buxton Opera House, “pulled out every stop to accommodate the festival, ensuring a sustainable future for this important event”.
The event moved to Harrogate in 2014.
The festival was first staged in Buxton in 1993 before moving to Harrogate. The email said:
“We are immensely sorry to leave so many fantastic friends in Harrogate and the magnificent Royal Hall theatre.
“Buxton is, and always will be, the spiritual home of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival. We are excited to return and look forward to seeing everyone there next year.”
The Stray Ferret has approached Harrogate Borough Council, which manages the Royal Hall, for comment.
Harrogate hotelier says hospitality grew ‘fat and lazy’ on cheap foreign labour
A leading Harrogate hotelier has said the hospitality sector grew “fat and lazy” on cheap labour from Europe and has been forced to pay better.
Peter Banks, managing director of Rudding Park, said some bar and kitchen staff were now earning £13.70 an hour and could earn almost £29,000 a year for a 40-hour week if they were prepared to work anti-social hours.
Mr Banks’ comments came during a speech at Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce last night about the lessons of covid.
He said the sector had suffered from the impact of lockdowns and ‘furloughitis’, whereby staff that had spent eight months of the year being paid 80% of their wages by government had reappraised their lives and decided against a career in hospitality.
Staff recruitment and retention, he added, was now a “serious issue” and had forced pay increases. He said Rudding Park now paid an extra £1 an hour for working after 7pm and an extra £2 an our for working weekends.
The hotel has also introduced service charges for the first time, further boosting staff wages, he added. Mr Banks said:
“We have grown fat and lazy on cheap labour from Europe. Whether you are a Brexiteer or not, the rules have changed. We are not going back.
“It’s no good raging against covid. It’s no good raging against Brexit. We’ve just got to get on with it.”
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‘Thrown under a bus’
Mr Banks said Prime Minister Boris Johnson “threw us under a bus” during the first lockdown in March 2020 as hotels were forced to close without any support.
Rudding Park came within weeks of closing, said Mr Banks, adding that he told all 320 staff the business might survive until July if they accepted a 40% pay cut.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak then “rode to the rescue’ by introducing the furlough scheme, Mr Banks added.
He said the two years since has been a rollercoaster ride of adaptation.
Mr Banks said Rudding Park no longer accepted cash, which required three person days a week to count. It had also centralised ordering food “because we had five different kitchens and five different chefs ordering their own stock”.
He advised others in hospitality to “stretch the rules a bit, don’t just sit their passively and be creative”. He added:
“Don’t waste a good crisis. there’s always something you can learn from it.”
A branch of the café-bar chain Lounge is expected to open in Ripon this autumn.
Loungers, which owns the Lounge and Cosy Club brands, is currently refurbishing the building on Market Place formerly occupied by NatWest.
It is next to Ripon Town Hall, and the planned opening in September is set to create 25 jobs.
Sophia Stancer, community coordinator for the Loungers group, told the Stray Ferret:
“Recruitment is an ongoing challenge within the hospitality industry.
“At present, we are aiming for September for opening. All our vacancies are, or will, be listed on the Lounge website.
“We’d love to encourage local people who know and love their community to apply – as community really is at the very heart of what we do.”
The Lounge will have a distinguished neighbour in Ripon Town Hall
Loungers was founded by friends Dave Reid, Alex Reilley and Jake Bishop, who wanted to create a neighbourhood café-bar that they would want to go into themselves.
The trio, all of whom had previous experience of working in the restaurant and bar trade, opened their first venture in Bristol in 2002.
They describe the Lounge brand as “a café/bar combining elements of a restaurant, British pub and coffee shop culture”.
Now the group has approximately 150 restaurants and cafés in England and Wales.
The Loungers group was valued at £185million before its listing on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market, which lists smaller growing businesses.
The hospitality sector was hit hard by the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020 and all of the group’s restaurants were temporarily closed.
Loungers secured a £15million revolving credit facility from its banks, designed to assist the company during the covid-19 disruption.
Ripon’s Spa Hotel has been sold for an undisclosed sum to The Inn Collection Group.
The 40-bedroom Edwardian hotel was on the market for a guide price of £1.5 million.
It has been sold on behalf of long-standing owners the Hutchinson family by Colliers International.
The property agents brought the hotel to the commercial market for the first time since it was opened in 1906.
Julian Troup, head of UK hotels agency at Colliers, said:
“This sale marks a new chapter in the history of the Ripon Spa Hotel, and I look forward to seeing this renowned Yorkshire hotel benefitting from the high-quality of refurbishment for which The Inn Collection Group is synonymous.”
The hotel will be refurbished by the new owners
He added:
“There has been a noticeable change of mood in recent months among potential hotel purchasers.
“Activity has significantly increased, and the Ripon Spa Hotel attracted a good deal of interest from a diverse range of buyers before being secured by The Inn Collection Group.”
Located on Park Street in landscaped grounds of 5.75 acres and including croquet lawns, the three-star hotel was built complete with its own ballroom to accommodate high society in the early 1900s when Ripon Spa was operating in the cathedral city.
It continued to trade successfully long after Ripon Spa closed in 1947, although the hotel’s Turkish baths were eventually converted into The Turf, a popular public bar and bistro with horse-racing décor to complement the hotel’s more formal dining room.
The purchase of the Ripon Spa Hotel by The Inn Collection Group increases to 24 the portfolio of the Alchemy-backed hospitality company, which is based in Northumberland.
Sean Donkin, managing director of The Inn Collection Group, said:
“We are delighted to be welcoming the Ripon Spa Hotel into our portfolio.
“Its picturesque location in such a popular part of the UK makes it the perfect fit for The Inn Collection Group. and our offering.
“We’re excited to be furthering our expansion plans with such a great site, and are proud to be continuing to thrive during these challenging times for the hospitality sector.”
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The reopening of the hotel will come as a relief to operators of tourist attractions, as well as Ripon City Council, which was concerned that the property might be sold for redevelopment involving other uses.