Published
Fri, Nov 24, 2017, 15:50
- "Our team is shattered and all the money invested in this start-up is gone," posted Music Goes Further on Facebook.
Music Goes Further, the company behind the Into The Valley festival franchise, has cancelled Into The Castle in South Africa.
The one-day event was due to take place at Castle Of Good Hope in Cape Town on January 26th, 2018. In a statement posted to Facebook, Music Goes Further said the losses from the cancellation of Sweden's Into The Factory festival in July, which totalled over €400,000, caused an "acute liquidity shortage," forcing them to indefinitely postpone the forthcoming event in South Africa. The company also made losses of more than €150,000 at Into The Valley in Estonia, which was plagued by bad weather and small crowds.
"2017 was an absolute nightmare for us, and still is," reads the statement. "The initiative is on a total pause at the moment and we are working day and night trying to clean this situation up. If we do not make it, it will be the end of our brands, Into The Valley, Into The Factory and Into The Castle, and also for us as festival organizers. It would be beyond sad but we could just never imagine such a series of large setbacks striking us one after another."
The organisers add: "Our team is shattered and all the money invested in this start-up is gone. We need to take a big step back in order to be able to come back with new energy in 2018. It is our goal to produce a festival in Europe during 2018, but at this point it is too early to plan for this or make any promises. We keep toiling and praying for things to start moving in the right direction."
Music Goes Further still owes money to artists who played at its previous events. They thanked the likes of Nina Kraviz and Larry Heard for waiving their fees and called on other artists to follow suit, saying "We hope that more artists will follow their example as this cancellation was really out of our hands. Doing so, and refraining the fee, would be vital and a huge help for us to get back on our feet."