New Bank Holiday for 2022 Platinum Jubilee

The culture secretary Oliver Dowden has announced a four-day bank holiday weekend to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

In an attempt to “bring the entire nation and the Commonwealth together” the late Spring Bank Holiday in 2022 will be moved to Thursday 2 June with an additional Bank Holiday created on Friday 3 June.

Positioned as “once-in-a-generation show” over the four-day bank holiday weekend, The Queen, 94, hopes as many people as possible will have the opportunity to join the celebrations, Buckingham Palace said. She will have reigned for 70 years on 6 February 2022. Dowden said it would be a “truly historic moment” and deserved a “celebration to remember”.

However, it’s short notice for Rose Calendars as we have already printed a number of our 2022 calendars. Work begins in designing the range well ahead of time for all of our promotional calendars. Each page, for every month on every calendar requires a new image to be sourced, which with over one hundred different designs in the range is a mammoth task. Our talented team then begin the process of creating the stock which is then printed for our customers in their chosen design. It’s a process which has stood the test of time, since the business was founded in Colchester in 1908. Production is now streamlined, so a change to published Bank Holidays is something which can be accommodated, but does not take into account the significant forward planning we have to carry out to ensure our customers receive their calendars of choice.

We already dealt with a change to the same Bank Holiday earlier this year for the VE Day commemorations in May. Due to lockdown, the repositioned Bank Holiday marked the 75^th anniversary of VE Day, yet planned events could not take place. The company footed significant losses as we reprinted thousands of calendars to ensure the dates were correct.

This time, a small number of 2022 calendars have already been printed, so there is still time to make the necessary changes to the date leaves and losses will not be as considerable.

Michael Rose, Managing Director, commented: “We have seen significant interest in our calendars as a distanced marketing tool in the past 3 months, where businesses see the benefit of advertising their company as they are unable to see customers face to face under Covid restrictions. A celebratory weekend in 2022 is something to look forward to and we will ensure our calendars reflect this.”

The Queen is the longest reigning British sovereign and it’s hoped events will reflect the impact on the UK and the world since her accession to the throne in 1952. It’s expected that members of the Royal Family will take part in celebrations over the weekend and a Platinum Jubilee medal will be awarded to those in public service, including the Armed Forces and the emergency services.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “The Platinum Jubilee offers an opportunity for the Queen to express her thanks for the support and loyalty Her Majesty has received throughout her reign. The Queen hopes that as many people as possible will have the opportunity to join the celebrations.”

The first week in June has been chosen for the occasion due to the chance of better weather, rather than marking the event in February, added to the fact that The Queen would prefer not to celebrate the occasion of becoming the monarch on the day of the death of her father King George VI.

For the time being, Rose Calendars continue with production of 2021 calendars which are being distributed to customers all over the UK, ready to promote their companies next year.