We’re really sorry to have to tell you that Groundswell Festival in France has been cancelled. We’re incredibly sorry for everyone who has purchased tickets based on our suggestion.
They will of course refund all purchased tickets, but most of the travel arrangements visitors have made will most likely be non-refundable so we have decided to put up a little contest for all peeps who planned to attend Groundswell and have decided to go to France anyway. Share your experiences and photos with us (email to anna (at) coolermag.com), and the best “What I did instead of Groundswell” stories will be published on our website and Facebook.
Here’s the official letter from the organisers, explaining what went down, well kinda…
13th September 2011
To All Media,
As per the meeting on the 12th September at the Mairie of Angresse, it is with great disappointment that Allez-oop Promotions can confirm that we have been forced to cancel Groundswell Festival.
This decision has not been taken lightly, and comes after 2 years of working full time to launch this project, and investing everything we had in to its success.
Our primary investor withdrew all his funding from the event on Friday 9th September. Previously, with the support of our investor we had the ability to lose some money in our first year, knowing that we can build the event in future years.
We have been in the event industry for seven years, so we know its never likely to make a profit the first year. So you must be prepared for the longterm project to develop the brand and following from the public, and then the event will have fantastic longterm success. Our investor understood this, but unfortunately due to the last three weeks being particularly difficult he decided not to invest further. This meant that running the festival would leave other related businesses in a far worst position then if we canceled beforehand.
Please be aware that the decision was taken in order to limit the amount financial damage to everybody involved on the project.
Without the support of our investor the financial damage to all the suppliers working on Groundswell would have been much greater after the event then if we stopped now.
It has been suggested that we should have carried on, but this would have been dishonest trading as we would have known that we would be unable to pay everyone post event without our investors backing.
We cancelled the event to reduce the damage as best we could.
We are working through everything with our accountant, and suppliers to ensure we manage this as best we can.
We have a “freeze” on all trading, at the moment which I am working through with our lawyers in Jersey to have this lifted.
All suppliers will be paid in full for their work up to this point.
All ticket sales are not held by Allez – oop. The ticket sales are held by the bank, and will be refunded in full.
This has been very difficult both professionally and personally and we are doing the best we can. On Friday evening Lizi Wilson (Co – Director and my wife) was taken to the hospital after suffering a panic attack and collapsing in our Hossegor apartment Friday evening.
We sincerely apologise for this situation, and ask for your understanding in this matter.
Kind Regards,
Jeff Wilson
Co-Director, Allez-oop Promotions Limited
