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BlackCreek Music Festival cancelled for 2012 after a disastrous first year
Not surprised... that location made no sense to me.
LINK
There will be no BlackCreek Summer Music Festival season in 2012.
According to a notice posted on the festival’s website, the festival is currently in the process of executing a new financing strategy to provide long-term financial stability and cash flow for future years.
“We are still of the strong belief that Toronto and Ontario should be home to a leading summer music festival and that the benefits to the cultural community and tourism industry can be significant,” says Kevin Albrecht, a member of the festival’s investor group and dominant player in the field of Canadian sports broadcasting and marketing.
The festival made its debut last June at the cavernous Rexall Centre in an outdoor tennis stadium on the York University campus.
The website announcement will leave a lot of people, both inside and outside the organization, scratching their heads and wondering about many unanswered questions.
Subtext: Before moving on, the festival has to clear up unpaid debt to the tune of several million dollars, inside sources say.
Mystery: Why is Albrecht now referred to on the website with the modest “member of the investment group” tag when he was proudly identified last year as CEO.
Sponsor Gap: Why is there no mention of Capital One, the sponsor of the 2011 festival, which always got top billing as in “the Capital One BlackCreek Music Festival.”
Who’s Garth?: Conspicuously missing in the website announcement is any reference to Garth Drabinsky, who was billed as director of programming, and who masterminded the bookings, artist negotiations, production and marketing for the entire festival?
The festival, which had a budget of more than $15 million, turned out to be the last hurrah of the embattled showbiz tycoon. Drabinsky landed in jail just weeks after the festival ended after failing to win an appeal of his fraud conviction in connection with the 1998 collapse of his theatre empire, Livent. He is currently serving a five-year sentence but hoping for early release, and awaiting word after asking the Supreme Court to consider his case.
By the end of the inaugural season, Albrecht and Drabinsky were at odds with one another.
Five of the 17 concerts originally announced for the Back Creek season were cancelled because of slow ticket sales.
Among those who performed during the 2011 season — some to critical acclaim and audience enthusiasm — were Placido Domingo, James Taylor, Tony Bennett, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Despite massive advertising, not nearly enough tickets were sold. And the festival was plagued by many problems: an unfamiliar venue in an odd location, parking issues, over-pricing, and always the risk of rain.
According to the message on the website, unlike every major arts festival in Ontario, BlackCreek did not receive government funding “which certainly accelerated the financial challenges.”
BlackCreek claimed special status as the only major summer-long music festival in Canada, something that could be mentioned in the same breath as Tanglewood (summer home of the Boston Symphony) and Ravinia (north of Chicago).
After trying for several years, the National Arts Centre and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra had to abandon a plan to create a major music festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, owing to community controversy and lack of government support.
Albrecht noted: “There are certainly hurdles to clear in order to move forward which cannot be achieved without long-term financial restructuring and that’s where the focus must be at this time.”
People who worked on the festival are profusely thanked, but more than a few of them are still waiting for cheques — which had stopped flowing by mid-July.
The biggest questions concern 2013 and beyond. Can Albrecht find a partner with deep enough pockets to pay off the festival’s debts and provide secure funding for several seasons while the festival tries to get out of the creek and into the black. And who might that partner be?
Final questions: If there is a 2013 festival, will Capital One or Garth Drabinsky be part of it?
My advice: Don’t count on it.
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"In a world of illusion you only see what you feel"
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