{"id":753193,"date":"2026-08-29T04:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T04:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753193\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T04:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T04:02:10","slug":"man-41-dies-after-large-sign-falls-at-christian-festival-in-west-sussex-west-sussex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753193\/","title":{"rendered":"Man, 41, dies after large sign falls at Christian festival in West Sussex | West Sussex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">A 41-year-old man has died and at least six other people have been injured after a large sign fell at a Christian festival in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/west-sussex\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">West Sussex<\/a>, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The man, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, was pronounced dead at the scene after the incident at the Big Church festival near Steyning on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">His next of kin have been told and are being supported by specialist officers, Sussex police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The force added that at least six other people have been taken to hospital for treatment.<br \/>DCS Richard McDonagh said: \u201cThis is a tragic incident and our thoughts go out to the man\u2019s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Anyone with any information or relevant video footage has been asked to contact police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In a post on Instagram shortly after 5.30pm, organisers told attenders the show had been cancelled and all day visitors \u201cmust leave the site now\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Organisers later said they had decided to cancel the rest of the festival, which had been scheduled to run until Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWe are devastated by the serious incident that took place at Big Church festival 2026 today, in which a sign fell, injuring at least seven people, one of whom tragically lost their life,\u201d the festival said in an online statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cFirst and foremost, all of our thoughts are with those who have been affected, their families and friends, and everyone who witnessed what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cFollowing today\u2019s incident, we have made the decision to bring Big Church festival 2026 to a close.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Officers remained at the scene on Friday night, and people were advised to avoid the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The incident has been reported to the Health and Safety Executive and local authority, Sussex police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">McDonagh added: \u201cI recognise the immense distress this will have caused people at the festival, and we are working with a number of partners as we seek to establish exactly what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWe know there were thousands of people at the festival and we\u2019re urging anyone with any information, or any relevant video footage, to please come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 41-year-old man has died and at least six other people have been injured after a large sign&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-753193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}