Rural fair which brought 150,000 people to Leeds is out of the Game

AN annual event which attracted around 150,000 people to north Leeds this summer has been cancelled after it became “financially unsustainable”.

The Country Land and Business Association’s Game Fair, which this year was held over three days at Harewood House, has been described as “an agricultural Glastonbury” but organisers said it has failed to make enough money in each of the last three years.

The fair was first held in 1958 and was hosted by different estates around the country, but yesterday it was announced that last month’s Leeds event would be its last unless someone else stepped in.

Helen Woolley, director general of the CLA, said: “We are clear that the Game Fair can no longer be run by the CLA in its current form. We will, however, begin a period of consultation in which we will invite proposals from other organisations on how the Game Fair might be able to continue.”

She blamed “an increasingly crowded summer calendar of outdoor events” for the event’s difficulties, which led to falling attendances, adding to the commercial pressures.

Comments posted on its Facebook page after the event suggested other problems, with the cost of entry and the price of food and produce coming in for particular criticism.

Ms Woolley added: “Over the last three years the board made the decision to invest in the Game Fair because of our strong desire to turn the event around. We have been able to make this investment because of the otherwise robust financial position of the CLA.

“However we can no longer ask CLA members to allow their membership subscriptions to underwrite the losses the event makes.”