Industry News

Skiddle issues Hope & Glory Fest refunds as organisers remain uncooperative

Ticketing firm Skiddle says it will provide refunds to its Hope and Glory Festival customers after receiving a “complete lack of cooperation” from the event’s organisers.

Skiddle has promised to give full refunds to Sunday ticket holders, as well as a 50 per cent reimbursement to weekend ticket holders, after the event of earlier this month was cancelled on the Saturday.

Following the abandoned Liverpool festival, fans reacted in anger to the blatant overcrowding and poor management.

Thousands were left waiting for several hours after St. George’s Quarter became severely overcrowded. Eventually, police were ushered in after it was discovered that punters had limited access to toilets and food and drink facilities.

Ben Skiddle, co-founder of the firm, said on Twitter: “Today Skiddle put our customers first, and reimbursed a cancelled festival out of our own pockets. The event organisers should be ashamed.

“It’s far too easy to cause utter chaos, then hide behind a Ltd company. Ticket agents picking up the pieces despite no wrongdoing.

“Throughout all the issues, I sincerely hope that we did our best to keep customers informed.”

Skiddle also sent out an email to its customers informing them of the organisers’ lack of cooperation. It said: “Despite multiple emails and attempted phone calls, we have had no response. In light of this complete lack of cooperation, we feel it is in everyone’s interest to advise our customers that refund from the event organisers will not now be happening.

“As Skiddle’s mission is to put the customer first, we feel that this behaviour from the event organiser is completely unacceptable and have been using every resource possible to avoid this situation. Skiddle did not have any involvement in the organisation of the event and all funds remain with the event organiser.”

Customers were then advised to email Skiddle to apply for a refund within seven days of the notice.

In addition, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson announced an investigation that will ascertain how the festival descended into chaos. He told the Liverpool Echo: “As the local authority, we will do absolutely everything in our power to fully investigate how Hope & Glory’s organisers got things so wrong. We will draw up a detailed timeline of events and look at how we can ensure that things like this do not happen in the future.

“As a capital of culture, Liverpool is home to some of the best free and paid festivals in the country. The ones we run ourselves are always incredibly popular and well-received, and the private ones we work alongside, again, generally go without any problem.”

He added: “From Africa OYE, Fusion, Liverpool Loves and Pride, to our own huge events such as LIMF, the Three Queens, the Giants, Liverpool knows how to run a successful festival. If it was left to us, I’m sure the Hope & Glory festival would have gone without a hitch but, unfortunately, it wasn’t our event and the organisers allowed it to fall apart”.

Meanwhile, following the cancellation of Derbyshire’s Y Not Festival that was cancelled after heavy rain and wind, the event organisers were the ones to issue the refunds.

Affected punters received a 50 per cent refund with organisers releasing a statement, which read: “We were hit with extraordinary and highly unpredictable weather both during the build and over the weekend itself.

“There were levels of infrastructure in place to deal with adverse weather, however we reached a point when the forecast was changing hourly and there became a risk that emergency services would not be able to access areas of the site.”

The statement said the festival will return in 2018, “putting right what went wrong in 2017”.

Image: Exit Photo Team