Beachdown Festival, due to take place this weekend near Brighton, has been cancelled, it was announced today.
A message from the festival directors on Beachdown's website explains:
'It is with immense personal regret that the Directors of Beachdown Festival have been advised that they must announce that due to slower than forecast ticket-sales and lack of support at a critical time from our bank and certain suppliers that despite being so so close to being able to deliver Beachdown Festival we are unable to do so. Very simply we were unable to meet the demands that the current economic climate put against us and at the eleventh hour despite having most of the infrastructure in place we have been forced to cancel the event.
We wish to say at this time how desperately sorry we are to all those who have bought tickets or were participating in the event and to say that we all here are personally shattered expecially after eleven months of battling against the recession to try and put this event on and coming so close. We also wish to advise everyone that we explored every possible avenue to finance the event including re-mortgaging our houses to combat the unwillingness of banks to support us.
We will do everything in our power to give the best information that we can via the web-site and via email but we ask that people understand that we will also be inundated with enquiries but we will endeavour to communicate to everyone as best we can.
We ask all ticket-holders to get information from the outlet that you purchased the ticket from in the first instance and once again we will do everything we can to get as much infrmation as we can to everyone as quickly as we can.'
Beachdown had reportedly suffered financial problems since its launch last year, leading to the cancellation of some pre-festival events during 2009. This week's late release of individual day tickets (as East reported yesterday) appears to have failed to generate enough sales to aid the festival.
Disappointed music fans in the region may console themselves with a free weekend of live music at the De La Warr Pavilion instead, including Riz MC and Evil Ed at Random Fridays (Aug 28), The Fence Collective on Saturday (Aug 30), and The Willkommen Collective on Sunday (Aug 31).
Eastbourne's capital, who were due to play Beachdown, have also announced they will be returning to Brighton on Oct 7 for a gig at The Pav Tav.