Killarney Festival of Music & Food (Formely Westport Festival)

SteelyDanJalapeno

Bunch of gowls

beertons

Wonder will the hotel's return all the money paid for the hotel rooms that are now not needed?

ArtOfEscape

Level 5 Vegan wrote: »

Have seen this happen before when festivals cancel and can sometimes work out to be a really good deal. Guess it'll be an INEC job. Disgraceful pulling it so late, so many plans made, hotels booked etc.

Would love to see this happen for Duran -- but we would need to know sooner rather than later!

Wrongway1985

ArtOfEscape wrote: »

Would love to see this happen for Duran -- but we would need to know sooner rather than later!

So basically...please, please tell you now, Is there something you should know??

ArtOfEscape

Wrongway1985 wrote: »

So basically...please, please tell you now, Is there something you should know??

Thank you for that giggle because I think I'd be crying otherwise!!


Official notice just went up on the Facebook page in the last few minutes.

Mushy

beertons wrote: »

Wonder will the hotel's return all the money paid for the hotel rooms that are now not needed?

Why should they have to? Some hotels cancellation policy may allow for rooms to be cancelled alright, if, for example, went through booking.com.

Had been toying with the idea of heading to this for the Sunday, but could never justify the price. A mess by the organisers.

comet

Level 5 Vegan wrote: »

Have seen this happen before when festivals cancel and can sometimes work out to be a really good deal. Guess it'll be an INEC job. Disgraceful pulling it so late, so many plans made, hotels booked etc.

They'll be no relocation to INEC, too late for that.

ArtOfEscape

beertons wrote: »

Wonder will the hotel's return all the money paid for the hotel rooms that are now not needed?

Mostly depends on the policies of the individual hotels and how much notice they require.

Kmgirl

Bad publicity for Killarney and the organizers aren't even from the town. They made a complete shambles of the whole thing and the prices were far too expensive too. At this stage, they might as well of just let the event go ahead anyway despite the low ticket sales as they have to pay all the acts due to perform at the festival anyway.

ArtOfEscape

^^ Yeah, I'm really curious about the economics of this decision and how much they could have possibly mitigated their losses by cancelling.

comet

I think the fact the forecast for the weekend isn't very good probably impacted the decision too, a sunny weekend would have bumped numbers significantly.

comet

"We're currently in discussions with some of our acts about performing in an alternative indoor venue over the weekend. We will announce asap"

Apparently they have only sold 1500 tickets so that could easily move to the INEC but would people want their money back and how could you sell any new tickets in time......... Will be interesting to see if they can get that to work.

Allyall

I just heard... I am/was supposed to be going there this weekend against my better judgement.
A friend of mine is home from living abroad, and he wanted to go to it, as it seemed the only thing on, with the exception of a few small festivals in Kilkenny and Drogheda Samba Festival.

Luckily I haven't purchased a ticket, but he has three, I was supposed to get mine this week. I hadn't confirmed I was able to go.

Out of curiosity, who's idea was it to move it from Westport? It was doing okay there, and it's not renowned for ripping people off..

It really seems like it was taken over by people who had no idea what they were doing.

McLoughlin

Allyall wrote: »

I just heard... I am/was supposed to be going there this weekend against my better judgement.
A friend of mine is home from living abroad, and he wanted to go to it, as it seemed the only thing on, with the exception of a few small festivals in Kilkenny and Drogheda Samba Festival.

Luckily I haven't purchased a ticket, but he has three, I was supposed to get mine this week. I hadn't confirmed I was able to go.

Out of curiosity, who's idea was it to move it from Westport? It was doing okay there, and it's not renowned for ripping people off..

It really seems like it was taken over by people who had no idea what they were doing.

It just about broken even in Westport but rental costs went up so decisioon was made to move it. (so I was told)

Allyall

McLoughlin wrote: »

It just about broken even in Westport but rental costs went up so decisioon was made to move it. (so I was told)

It seems weird that they would move it to Killarney though, does it not?
Unless Killarney Coco or whoever, were offering to partially fund it.
Also, it was very, very poorly advertised.

That aside, I wouldn't be fond of going to Killarney off peak, but at the end of June, to a festival? I was only going because of my friend.

I feel bad for everyone involved in it tbh, but it does seem like a lot of obvious mistakes were made.

McLoughlin

Allyall wrote: »

It seems weird that they would move it to Killarney though, does it not?
Unless Killarney Coco or whoever, were offering to partially fund it.
Also, it was very, very poorly advertised.

That aside, I wouldn't be fond of going to Killarney off peak, but at the end of June, to a festival? I was only going because of my friend.

I feel bad for everyone involved in it tbh, but it does seem like a lot of obvious mistakes were made.

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20210%3Afestival-may-not-return-in-2015&catid=23%3Anews&Itemid=46 about westport

C.K Dexter Haven

This is so disappointing but not surprising- I thought the Westport Festival really had something going on the last few years- pity they changed it.

lbj666

I got to say good riddance,

Pulled it from westport alienating the loyal goers it had brought up there, i dunno what the ins and out of the issues the promotor and the town had but it never shed the promotor in a good light. They were essentially starting from scratch again in killarney to build its product but in a now more saturated festival market than when westport began a few years ago.

The crowdfunding for a new bands stage was a shocking stunt to pull just when you thought the lowballing smaller irish bands at irish festivals couldn't get any worse.

Deciding on an actual venue in until they eventually pick the obvious choice the Demense didn't instill confidence. It could have been plonked on some football pitch for all people knew until they announced where it was going to be.

It was too much of a shot in the dark for people with many other options around, hence it didn't sell well.

Allyall

I just noticed it's over in this thread too - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055422803&page=262

JP Liz V1

Kmgirl wrote: »

Bad publicity for Killarney and the organizers aren't even from the town. They made a complete shambles of the whole thing and the prices were far too expensive too. At this stage, they might as well of just let the event go ahead anyway despite the low ticket sales as they have to pay all the acts due to perform at the festival anyway.

Who were the organisers, I thought Killarney Chamber were involved?

Allyall

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Who were the organisers, I thought Killarney Chamber were involved?

http://killarneyfest.com/the-history-of-rag-lane-entertainment/

ArtOfEscape

Duran Duran have just released this statement -- I guess this means that they won't be moving their performance to another venue?

http://www.duranduran.com/wordpress/2015/band-statement-about-killarney/

Laurel_Patente

Second festival cancelled in the space of about two weeks after Dream Gathering...core similarities between them were moving their base halfway across the country and alienating their core fan base...surely it stands to reason that you stand the best chance of running a successful festival by treating your potential customers with respect and remembering why people went to your festival in the first place...take a leaf out of Body and Soul / Indiependence books

road_high

Killarney is lovely but the location is not good, access is brutal and accommodation expensive. Few daytrippers would bother. 3-4 hours from Dublin, 1.5-2 hours from Cork or Limerick.

sasta le

Alot of factors made this fail

Furious-Red

Furious-Red wrote: »

Can nearly see it being cancelled just before it happens

C.K Dexter Haven

road_high wrote: »

Killarney is lovely but the location is not good, access is brutal and accommodation expensive. Few daytrippers would bother. 3-4 hours from Dublin, 1.5-2 hours from Cork or Limerick.

Also, Killarney didn't "need" this festival. It's a busy enough town in the Summer time.

pmalone

Fair enough Furious-Red, but I called it in February

pmalone wrote: »

...
What an attitude! ... No onsite camping, a pretty nasty attitude from the organisers, a pretty poor line up (We still love you Damo!)... this festival is pretty much doomed from the start.

I really feel for the punters who are travelling and booked hotels. Also for all the bands who probably did not get a deposit. For vendors who will lose a weekend's income. And all the support crew and staff. It remains to be seen who has been reimbursed and who not. I saw somewhere that the headliners were all paid. I don't know if that is the case.

I have no sympathy for the organisers who were playing shenanigans from the start (pay to play), who unbelievably underestimated what interest those "headliners" would draw and who clearly have no understanding of the festival demographic of Ireland. Who in their right mind could think that this could have drawn 35,000 paying punters in the already very busy festival market?

sasta le

The Westport line ups looked good
These kilarney thing would have been a good idea in winter in the inec do packages

Brian Lighthouse

Pat Kenny will be talking about it on his Newstalk show - just after the Creche Graduation segment

Allyall

Brian Lighthouse wrote: »

Pat Kenny will be talking about it on his Newstalk show - just after the Creche Graduation segment

Just heard him mention it. He's very difficult to listen to. I'll try and tune in at the end.

MagicMarker

Allyall wrote: »

Just heard him mention it. He's very difficult to listen to. I'll try and tune in at the end.

Yeah, he'll never make it in the world of radio.

Allyall

MagicMarker wrote: »

Yeah, he'll never make it in the world of Irish radio.

FYP.

To be fair, it seems as though a Donkey's arse could've broke wind down a microphone on Irish radio and would be considered a success.

beertons

Irish rail said they'd refund all tickets to Killarney this weekend, for any festival goers.

ArtOfEscape

beertons wrote: »

Irish rail said they'd refund all tickets to Killarney this weekend, for any festival goers.

Full refunds? That's very decent!

beertons

It was on their Twitter earlier.

Allyall

Killarney Chamber of Commerce representative talking now.

Boom__Boom

beertons wrote: »

Irish rail said they'd refund all tickets to Killarney this weekend, for any festival goers.

Lots of the Killarney hotels offering refunds as well.

https://twitter.com/jerosullivanRK/status/614041708431589376

https://twitter.com/jerosullivanRK/status/614041249616629760

https://twitter.com/KAdvertiser/status/614040054722375680