Haworth 1940s Weekend: Row over size of event and bookings of main venues leads to divided opinion in Yorkshire village

They have experience of professional events management, and were keen to put the weekend under the auspices of a Community Interest Company to ensure it is transparently and competently run in future years.

Yet they claim that their plans were scuppered when the main venues traditionally reserved to host 1940s-themed dances that generate ticket revenue to fund traffic and waste management were instead booked by a local businessman who began to advertise them independently.

David Robertson, who runs tourism agency Bronte Adventures, managed to transfer advance bookings made by the previous organisers for coveted Bradford Council-managed Central Park and the village hall to himself.

The bookings were later withdrawn, but Mr Wignall told The Yorkshire Post that he felt visitors were unlikely to purchase tickets to both official and unaffiliated dances held on the same dates – leading to him and his partner to decide the entire event was unviable and cancel it until 2025.

Mr Robertson was still selling tickets to dances in Haworth and Victoria Hall in Keighley, but just two days after Mr Wignall publicly announced the weekend’s cancellation, cancelled the Haworth dance and is now only promoting the Keighley dance.

The U-turn means that Haworth will have no 1940s-themed entertainment at all this May, while Mr Wignall’s plans to reduce overcrowding by working with the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to expand the event to nearby Oxenhope have been postponed by a year.

"It’s very complicated and for what was a small village event, has got out of hand,” said Mr Wignall.

"We took this on after the previous organisers stood down, and nobody else came forward. We’ve loved the 1940s Weekend since we’ve lived here, and its loss to the village economy would be huge. We’ve run big events before and we pulled together a team. We set up a social enterprise, a CIC, for transparency, as there was none in the past and people would ask where the money given to charity ended up.

"David wanted to take part, and at first we thought it was a good idea, as we welcomed his local knowledge. We shared our plans with him, as Chris Slaven had already told us that the dances had been their main source of income and paid for the road closures, security, waste collection.

"David then said he wanted to take on the whole event himself, though we had already taken it on. The park had been booked under Chris’s name, and was going to be released to us – but David then booked all the venues under his name.

"He then announced he had taken a step back and handed it back to us, but then launched two main dances and began selling tickets. We had already begun speaking to the heritage railway about the dances. Without the ticket money, we would have to fund the weekend ourselves. We reached out to David and asked him to pay half of the traffic management costs, but he refused.

"It was costing us an extra £10,000 and there was no middle ground. In the end, we just can’t put it on without the ticket money in advance.

"We had a conversation with the council and agreed to put it on in 2025 instead. They are happy with our plans and all the venues are booked for next year – but the situation has become very confusing for people. Next year will be a fresh start.”

Mr Wignall added that a small group of Haworth residents are ‘very opposed’ to the 1940s Weekend and there had been abusive behaviour on social media.

The 2023 event was controversial after a number of complaints were made about overcrowding, poor management of parking and a focus on alcohol vendors. A post-weekend review involving Bradford Council and West Yorkshire Police recommended that fewer temporary licences be granted to bars and that stalls were kept away from properties. Around 40,000 people had attended, but since 2019 enthusiasts have criticised Haworth for what they perceived as a lack of authentic displays and exhibits.

Mr Wignall added: “Whilst we were prepared to take on additional costs which would ensure public safety, we were not prepared or expecting to experience a loss in revenue by someone fracturing the event and running part of the main event solo, which directly impacts our funding and event management plans.

"Our programme for 2025 includes art installations, remembrance and heritage displays paying homage to the local region, as well as vintage displays, handpicked vintage stalls and much more, dispersing the footfall into multiple venues and working closely with local businesses.

"All of the previous concerns that arose from the growth of the event, which were voiced by residents and local businesses have been taken on board – with public safety and residential enjoyment being our key aim. We are proud to be supporting charity partners The Pilgrim Bandits and Mind in Bradford.”

Mr Robertson responded to the Wignalls’ claims with a lengthy statement on his Bronte Adventures blog, which read:-

"In offering my professional event management services to ensure a smaller 1940s Weekend continued in Haworth, I seem to have been embroiled or even blamed for its cancellation, not directly, but mentioned by name in the comments which have since been removed.

"This doesn’t seem fair or make any sense, especially as I am nothing to do with the weekend in Haworth and I certainly wasn’t going to pay £9,000 towards somebody else’s business expenses. Most people believe that this event is managed by a public committee or charity of locals, but the reality is different to this.

"For the past six years, it has been run by a 1940s enthusiast who paid for everything herself. She brought her own team of friends and volunteers together and did everything in her spare time.

"People often ask where the money went each year and why the accounts are not available. The answer to that is very simple. Unless you are HMRC, they are private funds in exactly the same way as anybody else’s are.

"I have said it many times that she and her team deserve an award and I still stand by that now. However, in my opinion and those of many others, it had grown far too big for such a small village and many locals were upset by some of the activities asked of them. I mentioned this to her when she kindly gave me all the contact details of the vendors, military vehicle owners, entertainers and others used in previous years.

"My plan was to reduce the scale of the event, with less alcohol and allocate special parking for residents who were usually asked to move their cars along Main Street and Sun Street. I would have encouraged coaches to park in Keighley and enter Haworth via Keighley & Worth Valley Railway trains or by special shuttle buses from the business station. I had already spoken to the local staff in Sainsbury’s and Asda about car parking there too, believing I was still involved in the weekend.

"But when it was publicly announced that others were ‘taking over’ the weekend without me, I did wonder where they would be holding the event.

"As any event manager would do, before any such announcement, you would secure the venues first. The problem was that I had already booked Central Park in the village and shortly after, was allocated the car park by the Bronte Parsonage Museum. This space would have been allocated to residents only.

"In early December 2023, I decided to step aside and hand everything over to them believing everything was in safe hands. I provisionally booked the village hall so I could get more information about it as it’s not clear on their website and there’s no number to call. As soon as it became apparent that it wasn’t big enough to generate an income, as tickets would have been very limited, I spoke with the village hall representative and cancelled my initial booking which hadn’t been paid for.

"To my surprise, I was asked to contribute £9,000 to their event costs which is effectively giving somebody else’s business money when they had their own big plans for generating income. It was cited that the village hall was essential to raising funds, but if that was so, why wasn’t it booked weeks before and had they really calculated the figures? An if that was the only barrier, they could have booked it themselves with five months still to go.

"When they refer to ‘dances’ are they referring to a dance miles away in other places I’ll be hosting them?

“I wish any organisers well for 2025, which in my opinion, should be led by an open group of residents with a separate bank account to raise money for local projects and groups. Christmas is managed very well, so why not a smaller 1940s weekend?

"However, there seems little or no appetite for it to continue from the few people I contacted and people have since said that with all the local politics and negative attitudes, I am better staying well clear, which is advice I am gladly taking.

"I am now focusing on my other income streams, events and 1940s dances I’ll be putting on elsewhere.“

When contacted by The Yorkshire Post, Mr Robertson added: “I wanted to scale down the event, with no burger vans, and a small marquee and bar in the park. I didn’t want to set up a limited company. I would have put a plan together and made sure it fitted with the council’s.

"I care about Haworth and my dance in Victoria Hall is completely separate – Keighley has never been part of the weekend before.

"I’m sure Matthew and Jamila will run a good event, but I didn’t want to commit and mine would have been different. It is a positive opportunity for Haworth and I wish them well.”