IRVINE’S only music festival has been scrapped for this summer after organisers failed to drum up enough cash.

Freckfest founders have announced that the three day festival in June will now not take place due to financial and time constraints.

Organisers of the festival - which was launched just last year to honour the late Willie Freckleton - have been focusing on gaining charitable status which they eventually gained last month.

Organisers say this will see future events becoming bigger and better, but as a result this year’s highly anticipated three day festival, has had to be cancelled because there is not enough time or money to get great acts lined up in time for June.

Chair of Freckfest Craig Smart, told the Times: “We’d love to have done the three-day festival again, however the committee believes that we are building something of real value to the area.

“A number of factors made it difficult to pursue the three-day festival this year, and the timing of the recent award of charitable status has made it impossible to secure the level of funding that we were hoping for to enable us to deliver an event that we would have been proud of.

“We believe that building on our regular events, while seeking funding for something on a much larger scale next year will allow us to stride ahead in the future with a well-structured organisation”.

Now the Freckfest committee, made up entirely of volunteers have decided to focus their efforts on bringing a series of events to the Harbour Arts Centre and Magnum theatre throughout the year, as well as developing a schools programme to encourage the talent in North Ayrshire’s youngsters.

Craig continued: “We are working closer with North Ayrshire Council and the Harbour Arts Centre to continue with the series of shows there, but we also hope to develop larger scale shows throughout the year and re-launch the three day festival in 2015. This is only the beginning and we are 100 per cent focused on staying here for the long term.” The next Freckfest event will be at the Harbour Arts Centre on Friday, April 11, where ex Cosmic Rough Riders vocalist Daniel Wylie headlines supported by local act the Mojo Cams.

Tickets are £5 and available from the Harbour Arts Box office and ticketweb.com.