Canada’s Pemberton Music Festival has cancelled their 2017 event, originally scheduled for July 13th-16th in Pemberton, BC. The festival was supposed to feature performances by high-profile acts like Chance The Rapper, Muse, A Tribe Called Quest, Major Lazer, Run The Jewels, and more. According to a report from local Vancouver news outlet CKNW, documents obtained from accounting firm Ernst & Young show that “decreased ticket sales and increased operating losses” have forced the festival to apply for bankruptcy. The documents show that ticket sales in 2017 were down to an average of just over 18,000 per day, less than half of the over 38,000 per day sold last year.
Unfortunately, in today’s increasingly over-satruated music festival market cancellations are hardly a rarity. For the most part, however, cancelled events offer fully automatic refunds to all fans who purchased tickets. That may not be the case for those unlucky fans who bought their 2017 Pemberton Music Festival passes in advance. According to the documents referenced in the CKNW report, “As PMF is now in bankruptcy, it has no ability to provide refunds for tickets purchased…Ticket holders may file a proof of claim form as an unsecured creditor with EYI in accordance with the claims process.”
However, this does not guarantee that any ticket purchasers will recoup their ticket purchases. It doesn’t guarantee that they won’t get their money back either, but it does ensure that doing so will be a huge pain in the ass. As the documents mention, “A determination of recovery, if any, on the claims of ticket holders from the estate will not be known for several weeks.”
More shocking still is the fact that, even after the announcement of the event’s cancellation, tickets were still available for purchase on the event’s website. That has since been remedied, but it’s clear that things in the Pemberton Music Festival camp are more than a little out of sorts at the moment.
[h/t – CKNW]