A man died and six other people were injured when a sign collapsed at the Big Church Festival at Wiston Park, near Steyning in West Sussex, and the organisers cancelled the rest of the event while police, the Health and Safety Executive and the local authority were brought in to sort through the wreckage. Sussex Police said it was called to the Christian festival at about 15:38 BST on Friday and later confirmed that a 41-year-old man from Eastbourne in East Sussex had died. The South East Coast Ambulance service said four of the six injured people were taken to local hospitals for further treatment, and two people had serious injuries. The festival had begun on Friday and was due to continue until Sunday. It did not make it that far.
A collapse, then the familiar machinery
The Big Church Festival describes itself as the UK's biggest Christian festival, founded in 2009. After the incident, organisers said they were "devastated" and said they were working with "the emergency services, police and the Health and Safety Executive as they establish the circumstances surrounding today's incident." That’s the language of managed crisis: the event stops, the authorities arrive, and the official record begins. The dead and injured are left to hospitals, while institutions move in to document what went wrong.
Organisers also said: "We are incredibly grateful to everyone who responded, and to our teams and community for the care they have shown one another." The statement reads like a familiar ritual after disaster, with gratitude directed upward and inward, toward the same event structure that had already failed to keep a sign from falling on people below it. The remainder of the festival was cancelled after the incident.
Shock, prayer and the volunteer tent
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, said she was "sad and shocked" to hear about the fatal incident. She said: "I pray for his family, friends and loved ones as they grieve. I pray for those receiving treatment, and the healthcare workers looking after them. And I pray too for the other festival goers, staff and event organisers as they come to terms with these tragic events. May the God of comfort and healing be with them all." The response from the church hierarchy was immediate, solemn and entirely within the language of consolation. The structure that hosts the festival remains intact.
Author Andrew Ollerton said he was "reeling" after seeing the incident. "My wife Charlotte and I were walking just a few paces behind when a huge overhead sign came crashing down on the people in front of us," he said. "We rushed with others to lift the sign off them and then administered first aid with others as best we could until the paramedics arrived." That account puts ordinary people at the centre of the immediate response, not the institutions. They lifted the sign. They gave first aid. They waited for paramedics.
Judah Martin, from Kent, said he saw vehicles "speeding" towards the area where the incident happened before campers were told to return to their tents "immediately". He said: "As we had no internet connection, we were unable to access information, except that word spread that there were serious injuries due to a falling sign." He added: "The sign in question was a huge wooden sign on the top of a hill which we walked under earlier that day." The detail is plain enough. People were left to rumours, movement orders and whatever they could see for themselves.
A site of worship, confusion and care
Rayanne Walters said she celebrated her birthday on Friday at the festival and spent the night before returning to her home in London on Saturday. "You could hear people crying in the middle of the night," she said. "People were crying because we were just so upset." Jessica Schuffenhauer travelled from Leipzig in Germany for the festival and said people were "united" inside after the incident as they sang and prayed together. Carla Diamond, from Hertfordshire, said: "We've got lots of friends here and it was really uncertain not knowing who was directly involved and if people were safe." Peter Heard, from Wiltshire, said he and his friends were "all pretty bewildered" after the incident and "a little dazed".
The Reverend James Di Castiglione, rector of the parish of Chanctonbury in which Big Church Festival takes place, said the incident had been a "huge shock to everyone locally". "We are all experiencing emotional whiplash about what's happened really because Big Church Festival is such a time of joy and unity and love and celebration," he said. Di Castiglione said there was "just a sense of confusion and shock that was rippling across the site" and called it "just the worst lightning bolt of tragic news striking everybody's hearts." The language is heavy with grief, but the facts remain stubborn: a sign collapsed, a man died, six others were injured, and the festival’s machinery of care and control took over.
The Salvation Army in Hove opened its hall on Friday to allow people to stay the night if they could not get home after the event was cancelled. Martin Bellshaw, from the Hove branch, said they welcomed about 20 people from Bristol and the north-west of England. ParentFuel, a Christian parent support charity, said its people at the festival were all safe. "We cannot praise the BCF team enough for the way things have been handled," it said on social media on Saturday morning. "We are currently sat in the volunteer tent with a brew in hand, worship music being played and the warmth of chatter around us." The charity called it a "freak accident" and added: "Life is so precious and so, so short. This weekend brought that ever closer for us all."
Sussex Police urged anyone with information about the incident to contact them. The Health and Safety Executive and local authority had also been informed, the force said. The paperwork begins. The dead don’t.