When festival director Melvin Benn said the immortal words “I think from June onwards we’ll definitely be over the hump of it all is my view. As I say I’m not a scientist, but I think we’ll be over the hump and I think we’ll be enjoying an incredible summer across the board.” at the launch of Electric Picnic the overriding sense at the time was that those words would come back to haunt him and so it has come to pass today with the announcement that Electric Picnic will not go ahead this year.

A statement from the festival reads as follows: