LIFT 2020 cancelled due to ongoing coronavirus outbreak

LIFT 2020 has been cancelled.

Running every other year, the festival brings together the best in international theatre from across the world to be presented at key venues across London. It has been confirmed that the festival will instead return in 2021.

Among the line-up this year was a 24-hour performance by Ruth Wilson, a verbatim piece at Shoreditch Town Hall and artists including Inua Ellams, Travis Alabanza and more. Artistic Director and CEO Kris Nelson and executive director Stella Kanu said:

"We are incredibly sad to announce that we will not be proceeding with this year's festival. The health, safety and wellbeing of our audiences, artists and team is our upmost priority, and having listened to advice from the Government, and consulted at length with festival artists and LIFT's trustees, partners and colleagues, it is clear that there is no choice but to postpone.

"We wish to thank every member of our team, and our co-producers and co-presenters, collaborators, and creatives for the enormous amount of time, and work they have invested in this year's festival, and our audiences for their support to date. LIFT is a festival that stands for inclusion and for community and in these uncertain times, we will do all we can to support the artistic sector in the UK, as well as international artists all over the world.

"If you have bought a ticket for a cancelled festival event, we would like to assure you that you are entitled to a credit note, exchange or refund. However, we would ask those who have purchased tickets to kindly consider donating the cost of your tickets to the festival if you have the capacity to do so. Please bear with us during this unprecedented and difficult time – we will contact you as soon as we can and keep our audiences as up to date as possible via the Festival website, social media and email. We are grateful for your support, your understanding and for wanting to be a part of LIFT.

"We look forward to returning in 2021 to bring you a festival of extraordinary and ground-breaking experiences when, we hope, these challenging times are far behind us."