The inaugural Jabberwocky Festival, which was supposed to take place August 15 and 16, has been cancelled just 72 hours before its start.
The London festival was cancelled by one of its organizers, All Tomorrow’s Parties, due allegedly to poor ticket sales. Artists and fans alike took to Twitter to express their disappointment and frustration at the cancellation, especially at such short notice. The festival was going to feature Neutral Milk Hotel, James Blake, Caribou and more. The official statement from a representative of All Tomorrow’s Parties is below:
It is with deep sadness we regret to inform everyone that as of today Tuesday 12th August 2014, ATP is being forced into cancelling this weekend’s Jabberwocky festival. Refunds will be available to all customers at the point of purchase.
We have put everything into promoting Jabberwocky, and despite healthy ticket sales; all our efforts could not take those sales to the point that we needed to finally stage the event. Over the past month and all the way up until this moment we have tried every possible course of action to follow through in delivering Jabberwocky to you, but the position we unfortunately find ourselves in as a result of a succession of events that have lost money in an increasingly aggressive festival market, means we are no longer able to do so.
In the past ATP has weathered losses such as this and gone on with the show, taking huge direct financial blows as an independent company. But on this occasion, with an event of this scale and the high production costs that come with it – if we had gone ahead; it would have 100% been the end of ATP. We do not take this decision lightly and it was the hardest we’ve ever had to make. All other ATP Presents shows will go ahead as planned, including ATP Iceland with our local partners there in 2015.
We apologise to all the people we have let down from fans to the bands, the venue and all the suppliers. We have tried everything in our power to save this event and continue, but the losses we have recently incurred have unfortunately been too much for a company of our size to bear.
For any questions, please contact us at feedback@atpfestival.com
Barry Hogan
All Tomorrow’s Parties
As pointed out by Consequence of Sound, the organizers took to social media just last week to promote the fact that weekend passes were almost sold out, leading people to question the legitimacy of their cancellation claims.
Weekend to #jabberwocky2014 are almost SOLD OUT! Less than 200 left. Day tickets only after these sell. Book now at: http://t.co/n8DKjKVc1d
— ATP Festival (@atpfestival) August 6, 2014
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