The second ATP 2.0 festival, curated by Drive Like Jehu, has been cancelled.
As the first ATP 2.0, curated by Stewart Lee, wrapped up, rumours began that the second date, which had been forced to move to Manchester after venue Pontins in Prestatyn claimed it had been cancelled, was not going to take place.
ATP has now issued a statement, promising full refunds and offering apologies. "After working through all options, including moving the event from Prestatyn to Manchester, we have had to accept defeat due to its lack of financial viability," it said in a Facebook post. "We would like to apologise to everyone involved, especially to our customers who were planning to attend the event.
"We would also like to extend our gratitude to the curators and artists for their involvement, and we are so sorry that we will not be able to stage this event.. We have instructed all ticket vendors to issue full refunds to their customers as soon as possible."
This morning, Drive Like Jehu, who had curated the event, wrote on Facebook: “It’s a uniquely cruel hoax to appeal to Drive Like Jehu’s ego and ask us to create a program based on personally inviting the bands and musicians that have inspired us and changed the way we hear music and then subject them and their supporters to this. We really wanted this show to happen more than anything. It had all the makings of a legendary weekend. We were so committed to seeing this through that we remained hopeful (blind in retrospect) amongst the ritualistic turmoil and crisis and trusted their solutions that would ensure that the show would definitely go on and the attendees would be treated fairly and the bands would be respected and celebrated.”
The post also states that the “whole mess” of not being an “isolated incident”, with ATP now having a history of event cancellations. Organiser Barry Hogan has allegedly not honoured his agreements with many acts performing, according to the band’s statement, including purchasing flights to enable acts to attend. ATP is also reportedly unable to honour its agreements to find accommodation after moving the event for ticket-buyers who had paid to stay in Pontins.
Drive Like Jehu also noted that ATP had offered to postpone the event until November, but the band declined.
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