After announcing its lineup just a few weeks ago, Pemberton Music Festival has been canceled on account of the event going bankrupt.
Perhaps the most frustrating part for festivalgoers is that there will be no automatic refunds for tickets as “the festival is now in bankruptcy and has no ability to provide refunds for tickets purchased," according to a message posted on the festival website. Ticketholders have a few options, however: they may file a proof of claim form with Ernst & Young, the festival’s trustee in bankruptcy, and may be eligible for a refund, although the results of the application may not be known for a few months. Ticketholders may also pursue refunds through their credit card companies if that was the method of payment.
Social media was ablaze with complaints on Thursday night.
There goes 40 hours of my life I spent to pay for my ticket! #PembyFest
Was so excited to see @chancetherapper at #pembyfest this summer but instead have been robbed out of $500 dollars
#pembyfest robbed thousands of people and deleted their social medias like cowards
Pemberton is a fucking joke #PembyFest
The moral of the story is, stop paying ridiculous amounts of money to go to festivals 😂🙄 #PembyFest #Fyrefest
One Twitter user couldn't resist the comparison to Ja Rule's doomed Fyre Festival.
did they decide to let Ja Rule organize pemberton as well? #PembyFest
Tickets for the event started at $369 each, which isn't cheap, but it still wasn't enough to recoup the staggering expense of throwing a festival of this scale. Organizers reported $8.2 million in ticket revenue so far this year, with over $22 million in budgeted expenses. They knew they wouldn't be able to make up the difference in the two months until the festival, so chose to pull the plug. Since 2014, shareholders and investors have invested millions of dollars to cover cash losses, a result of increasing operating costs, declining ticket sales and a declining Canadian dollar in relation to USD.
A Tribe Called Quest, Chance the Rapper, Muse, Diplo, Big Sean, Migos and Majid Jordan were just a few of the acts slated to perform at this year's Pemberton Music Festival.
