THIS year's Big Chill Festival has been cancelled.

Making an announcement on the festival's website today (January 19), Festival Republic managing director Melvin Benn blamed the cancellation on the clash with the London Olympics, a lack of an alternative date and artist availability.

Mr Benn said:"It is with a considerable amount of regret that I have decided not to go ahead with The Big Chill in 2012.

"I looked long and hard late last year at moving the date so it didn’t clash with the Olympics but the mix of the festival fans desire to keep the date and an inability to find an alternative date that works I plumped for maintaining the existing weekend.

"Sadly, the artist availability and confirmations we were achieving led me to conclude that I couldn’t risk going ahead with the event as an outdoor event this year.

"Efforts are being made to look to bring a smaller event indoors this year with the anticipation of Big Chill being back outdoors in 2013.”

The Big Chill has been held at Eastnor Castle's deer park near Ledbury in Herefordshire, for more than a decade.

Last year's festival, which ran from Thursday to Sunday, August 4-7, was headlined by The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West and Rodrigo y Gabriela.