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Wild in the Country festival cancelled
First Björk pulled out, then Battles pulled out, and now the whole thing's off: this weekend's Wild in the Country festival has gone the way of Tapestry and been cancelled.
A statement on the festival's official site reads:
"Stately Events Ltd is extremely disappointed to announce the cancellation of the Wild in the Country festival at Knebworth Park on Saturday 5th July. This is a very sad conclusion to our passionate efforts to develop an interesting and credible addition to the UK festival market. Unfortunately, Wild in the Country has become the latest in a series of festivals that have suffered from a unique and well-documented set of market forces this summer."
Read more here, where comments include, "Two days notice, it's an absolute disgrace. No doubt we'll have to wait weeks to see our money again. I feel for all the people who have booked flights etc".
Due to appear were acts including Soulwax, The Presets, Foals and Hercules & Love Affair.
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I am become death.
The shatterer of worlds.
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Ha
someone on the board is blaming DiS!
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this?
"I blame Bjork and c**t rumour mongerers that have clearly made the people with the money very twitchy. Thanks Bjork. Thanks DiS. Thanks NME. Thanks all the moaners."
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Yeah, blame Bjork for poor ticket sales
And while you're at it blame her for the poor organisation on Renaissance's behalf. The festival circuit is dying, get over it.
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Bloody "credit crunch"
innit
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That's Ridiculous
We all know its Jay-Z's fault.
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If you're having festival troubles.........
I feel bad for you son/I've got ninety-nine problems, but a DiS ain't one.
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Oh my good god
I can't believe this. I was going to get tickets for this as Bjork cancelled her Sheffield date and moved it to a date where I had an exam... argh. So pleased now. I feel sorry for the people who have been really looking forward to this.
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They can't deny refunds now can they
Had a really good line up initally too, tis a shame.
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Refund requests have to be in by 6pm tomorrow
<i>Following Bjorks announcement that she will not be appearing at Wild in the Country there has been some confusion over our position regarding refunds. Whilst our terms and conditions state that the ticket is purchased for the event, and not for any specific artiste, we will be accepting refund requests that must be received no later than 6pm on Friday 4th July 2008. These must be in writing along with a valid unused ticket (stub attached), sent to the place of purchase. For tickets purchased direct from Wild in the Country please address to:</I>
that's taking the piss!-
WHAT?!?!
they can't do that, surely!!!
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They can't
The tickets are never going to be used now, so I don't see why they have to be returned by tomorrow.
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that's out dated now i think
although i sent my tickets off a few hours ago special delivery. I imagine everyone'll just be reimbursed. Shame, I could have kept the ticket itself and saved some cash.
Feel sad for them, but also 2 days notice isn't good for those with flights/trains/accommodation etc.... I wonder where the fault ultimately lies? Somewhere between Bjork and Renaissance?
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That was posted yesterday
ie, before it was cancelled.
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that was for bjork's cancellation
i would imagine since the whole event is now cancelled, there will be a longer period to allow refund requests - in fact, they may even be repaid automatically by some agents (e.g. ticketmaster)
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Anyone hope Bjork feels a little bit guilty?
Like, 'oopsy' in her little accent
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not necessarily her fault
the festival may have been in deep trouble before her announcement, sadly we'll probably never know, and it will always be her word against renaissance's. they mention poor ticket sales, so it's possible that couldn't meet even the minimum production requirements forcing her to withdraw. not very professional, granted, but still plausible.
of course, the opposite is also true, and that bjork's demands may have been unreasonable, leading to the chain of events seen (false rumours, investor pulling out).
that said, the statement does mention poor ticket sales, and i think that might be the overriding problem.
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Surely they would've known of her demands
when they booked her? It's not like they booked her, and then one week before the event were like "you want HOW much?!"
Poor ticket sales is obviously at the bottom of this. I reckon they couldn't finance the thing as well as they thought, but were hoping they'd sell more in the run up. When that didn't happen, they had to tell certain bands of the problem and try to reduce their costs, leading to withdrawals. Then this big mystery backer pulls out and BAM, festival say bye bye
HEARSAY
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^ Thank you, voice of reason
Has anyone seen Bjork's recent shows? Quite a big amount of people/staging to pat for there.
I had considered going to this because of her, but in the end nothing on the rest of the line-up made it enough to pay the fairly high ticket cost, let alone the travel and everything else. It's no secret that the tickets are far from sold out, and frankly why should acts reduce an already negotiated fee to compensate for that?
Simple economics: for something that was simply a quite attractive all-dayer show, this was too expensive and too much to compete with what you get for a full three-day festival experience.
I have friends who were going - they are totally in the dark about what the refund situation is. Surely the organisers can't seriously start blaming the bands for the screw up.
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the question is..
which festival is next
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This is so bad
If they give everyone a full refund (which they fucking better do), then they're gonna be left fucked by this. Who pays for all the work that's already been done in terms of promotion and setting the site up?
Also, what happens to a band's fee when something is pulled as late as this?
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They'll have to be paid in full, I suspect
They're fucked, basically.
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Some kind of severance fee?
I don't know what the lineup was exactly, but I'd imagine the money would be a fairly big deal to some of the artists playing?
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insurance
insurance incurance
and most bands wont get paid (well they will have had 50% already if the agents are worth their salt)
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what happens if the insurers say renaissance are at fault though?
which i'm sure they will
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how many
£ were the tickets? and roughly how many sold?
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all these good festivals falling
and shite like Splendour in Nottingham is still looking healthy. it greys the soul
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whoa
aren't you doing splendour this year?
(it is the only Paolo Nutini english festival performance this year, I am informed)
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:(
:(
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Rather than getting refunds
Anybody half expecting Renaissance to go bust over this? Or should I be on the drama llama as I write this?
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Glastonbury next
Didn't sell out this year, next year it will be even less.
If there's any justice anyway...
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Glastonbury
did sell out, while festival was already started
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From Mixmag:
"Earlier in the week we told you Bjork had pulled out, yesterday we heard DJs were being rung to asked to play for half price and now today we've had confirmation that Wild in the Country has been cancelled"
Also, how many aren't actually gonna hear about this late, late, late cancellation and turn up on Saturday?
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i've just had an
email and a text message from See telling me it's been cancelled, so they seem to be on the ball about it
Hopefully not too many people will turn up without realising it's cancelled. That would fuck me right off. Maybe they can get a bus replacement service to the festival replacment service ?
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See, yes, but
if I hadn't gone on the website yesterday I still wouldn't know about it - for those who bought their tickets from Renaissance, they haven't actually announced it yet.
There'll definitely be hundreds of people turning up.
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Fuck 'em
Anyone who talks about the "UK festival market" are obviously in it for the money and nothing else so fuck 'em...
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I know!
People feeding their families, the dirty fucking bastards!
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more importantly
no foals. NO FOALS.
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AAHAHAHAHAHA
fuck them, you saturate the market, you burn.
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*drown
surely?
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..
to be honest its about time that the festival cult broke. Whilst I feel very sorry for everyone that was going to this (the organisors must have known it was not selling well for months-cancelling it at such short notice is bullshit) festivals have simply become little more than a day out for people that don't give a shit about music. There are far too many of them, hopefully next year there will be a lot less.
At the end of the day the vast majority of festivals are way too expensive, treat ticket holders like shit when they get there, and are badly run.-
THANK GOD
We've still got Standon Calling.
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Shame
Looked like a pretty decent line up from what I saw
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