Funkfest 2020 in the Australian state of Victoria has been cancelled due to safety concerns over the ongoing bushfires and subsequent poor ticket sales.
Organisers of the inaugural funk music festival, which was due to feature the likes of Afro Orchestra, Alice Skye and The Goods, released a statement detailing that the bushfires and evacuation of the region for almost four weeks came at a “critical time for tickets sales.”
All ticket-holders have been contacted with the process for claiming a refund and organisers have indicated that these people will be offered discounted tickets to the 2021 edition of the event.
The statement read: “There was ongoing uncertainty about the safety of the region and this basically killed us in the water.
“As you know we decided to try and push ahead, hoping that the public would support our efforts to bring business back to the region, but this has not been forthcoming. We have not reached our adjusted sales targets and thus do not have enough cash flow to go ahead.”
https://www.facebook.com/funkfest2020/posts/197436791654992
Festival partner Feathertop Winery was also directly impacted by the bushfire and evacuations and thus lost all revenue from January, adding that this region usually gains six months or more of their yearly income from this time period.
Funkfest’s statement went into great detail about its efforts to keep the festival afloat through different potential funding avenues, which came up empty.
It continued: “I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this series of devastating events. Only one bit of good news came from all this. I was advised that the aforementioned tourism grants WILL be able to help Funkfest in 2021.”
Image: Pixrepo
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