THE Mold Soul and Blues Festival will return despite making a loss this year.

Mold Town Council have backed the event for another year to give organisers the opportunity to put together a long-term plan for the event.

A vote was taken at the council’s monthly meeting to carry on supporting the event for another year.

Mold east ward Cllr Bryan Grew confirmed that, for the first time in its four years, the event had made a loss, but the success of previous events covered the deficit.

Bad weather hampered the event this year, particularly on the Sunday, and town centre manager Dave Hill said it still nearly broke even.

“If we’d had another 119 people come, we would have broken even. The event is still in surplus after four years and the number of visitors coming in from out of town is going up”, he said.

Mold south ward Cllr Anthony Parry said he felt the event needed a “radical overhaul” and that there was a lack of soul, “it’s only blues”.

He compared the popularity and appeal of other events in the town such as Live on the Square, but other members said the events were completely different and shouldn’t be judged by the same criteria.

Mold south ward Cllr Geoff Collett said an idea for next year was to book fewer acts in order to secure a really big name. He said: “There will be soul bands next year, it’s not the same as Live on the Square.

“We’re offering something here, a really big thing for Mold and we’re trying to achieve something totally different (to Live on the Square).”

The Mold Soul and Blues Festival is held in August on Kendrick’s Field.

Prior to 2017, since the festival began in 2014 the attendance had increased year on year.

One of the concepts of the festival was to help bring more people into Mold from outside of the town, as well as being an event for locals to support.