ORGANISERS have promised disappointed music fans that all the pain will be worth it after this year’s Rugfest Wallingford had to be called off for the first time in eight years.

Festival organisers at Wallingford Rugby Club have said the improvement works at Wallingford Sports Park that prompted the cancellation are worth it to make the park the best around.

And head Rugfest organiser Guy Hewitt, who has run the summer music and beer festival since 2008, has already promised that Rugfest 2017 will be the biggest and best yet.

Mr Hewitt, 50, a coach at the rugby club, said: “Of course it’s disappointing, but Rugfest is not dead by any stretch of the imagination.

“It will be back in 2017 bigger, brassier and bolder than ever.

“To some extent the rugby club has been victims of our own success because we have had grants for improvement works come in at the same time.”

In the next few months the club will have a new £70,000 drainage system installed in one of its pitches, funded by Sport England.

Rugfest uses that field for car parking and by the summer the new drainage will only just have been installed.

A brook along the side of the club which frequently causes flooding is also being repaired over the coming months.

But the biggest works happening at the sports park are the creation of its £400,000 new changing rooms this summer.

The new facility will provide the various clubs which use the park with separate adult and children and boys’ and girls’ changing rooms and showers for the first time ever.

The building will also have a dedicated physiotherapist room, which will become home to a freelance physio in return for giving teams discounted treatment.

The project has been largely funded by grants from South Oxfordshire District Council, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Sport England and WREN, which provides grants from the Government’s Landfill Communities Fund.

Mr Hewitt, who is also part of the rugby club committee, said Rugfest had even helped bolster the park’s case when applying for grants.

He said: “Rugfest has put us on the map with the RFU, they think it’s a great thing for a club to do.”

The festival team considered moving Rugfest to a new location for one year but decided the risk of it not working at a new location and damaging its reputation was too great.

Mr Hewitt added: “Rugfest isn’t just an event in a field, it’s part of the rugby club.”

He now hopes to announce a date and a great line-up for Rugfest 2017 in the next few months.

Construction of the new changing rooms is due to start on February 29 and be finished by the end of September.

Wallingford Sports Park, on Hithercroft Road, is owned by the district council and managed by Wallingford Sports Trust.

Trust chairman John Atkins said: “It’s exciting times but its also scary – we’ve been trying to do this for three years and we’re finally building up to a firm start now.

“It is a shame Rugfest has had to be cancelled but it is only this year. It is such a great event, it’s on the calendar for Wallingford permanently now.”