“Like Fyre Festival but with none of the lols” – U.K. festival disaster goes from bad to worse
While Fyre Festival’s glamorous Bahamian location and exorbitant ticket prices may mean it’s still destined to take out the prize for ‘biggest festival screw-up’ this year, the organisers behind Liverpudlian music event Hope & Glory have plenty to answer for themselves, after the “dangerous” event was shut down after just a single day.
As NME reports, the 12,500 capacity event was taking place over the weekend with a lineup of well-known British bands set to play, but quickly devolved into another tale of stranded fans, unsafe conditions, and organiser finger-pointing.
Concerns were first raised to police when the festival area became dangerously overcrowded on the first day, with the thousands in attendance complaining of being unable to access basic needs like food, drink and bathrooms, and police announced they were “working with stewards at opening up another entrance” in an effort to relieve the overcrowding.
Now, in a story with a happy ending, this would be where festival organisers worked with authorities to fix the shortfalls before the festival commenced its second day, and a crisis was averted… but no.
Instead, organisers took the drastic step of singling out the event’s production manager, blaming him solely for the issues and even posting his full name and email address on the event page.
“The production manager who did not complete the site in time and did not provide the planned bridged walkways into the garden was Richard Agar,” the post read, kicking off a string of events that would quickly lead to the cancellation of the event in the messiest way imaginable.
While festival promoter Lee O’Hanlon told the Liverpool Echo that “steps had been taken to ensure another great day of entertainment,” and that the festival would go ahead as planned, the organisers took to Twitter to announce that there would be “no festival today”, adding in another post that “Following the unfair and vitriolic comments, some of us have decided not to proceed.”
With what little professionalism was left thrown entirely out the window, local council were left with no choice but to shut the area down and post notices explaining it to attendees as best they could.
“The event management company who were responsible for delivering the Hope and Glory event have decided to cancel today’s festival,” the notices read. “Liverpool City Council has no choice but to accept this decision.”
Following the unfair and vitriolic comments, some of us have decided not to proceed
— Hope & Glory (@HopeAndGloryFes) August 6, 2017
Understandably, punters were furious, with one describing it as “an absolute shambles”, while another compared it to the aforementioned Fyre Festival, “but with none of the lols”.
Fans reported that tickets cost them £90 (almost $150 AUD), with bands like James, Hacienda Classical (featuring members of the Happy Mondays), Razorlight, Ocean Colour Scene, The Fratellis, The View, Reverend and the Makers, Badly Drawn Boy, The Pigeon Detectives and more, but hardly any of the punters were even able to navigate to the stages on the first day, and transport from the venue was also deemed a nightmare.
“Can you see us in at the hope and glory festival from your tower?” one fan tweeted at a local radio station, pretty much summing it up: “We are basically trapped. So dangerous.”
Now, in the wake of the fallout, the festival’s Twitter account is demonstrating the worst way of going about explaining the situation to disgruntled music-lovers, offering petulant responses amid claims they’ve been threatened with physical violence.
They have promised a full official statement of some kind, but for now are directing refund requests to ticketing companies.
Statement by noon tomorrow. Refunds refer to your ticketing company. https://t.co/K6Stn0paYe
— Hope & Glory (@HopeAndGloryFes) August 6, 2017
While we await an explanation of how and why the event went so horribly wrong, for now it seems to be another example of organisers making some serious planning errors, and then shooting themselves in the foot by throwing the PR handbook out the window.
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.