Paxton Talbot, the promoter of failed Echo Festival.
Paxton Talbot, the promoter of failed Echo Festival.
The promotion company behind the cancelled Echo Festival in Auckland has gone into liquidation, and those waiting for ticket refunds still have no assurance they will get their money back anytime soon.
A message posted on the Echo Festival NZ Facebook page this afternoon said the festival's promoting company had been placed into liquidation.
"After a long and what now seems pointless struggle it is with deep disappointment we must announce that it has been resolved to place the festival's promoting company into liquidation," the message stated. "The festival and its advisers have been trying hard to identify an effective way to provide the project with a future and at the same time recover from the huge losses sustained over the last few months, but it is deemed that the task is too great."
The two-day music festival was set to take place in January and featured headliners Disclosure and The Flaming Lips.
It was canned due to poor ticket sales late last month.
It was initially based at McLaren Falls in the Bay of Plenty, but issues with consents forced the move to Auckland and a name change in October.
The liquidation message said having explored "all possible measures and future outcomes", the company felt this was the most responsible thing to do so had taken this action.
Mac DeMarco, one of the acts scheduled to perform at Echo Festival.
On December 2, Echo Festival boss Paxton Talbot told the Herald refunds would be paid by December 17.
"Everyone's going to get their money back. Everyone needs to be reassured that they are going to get their money within the next two weeks. That's going to give us time to get everything organised."
Today's liquidation notice made no mention of that deadline, which is only two days away.
"We recognise there are still some people waiting for ticket refunds," the message said. "The arrangements around this process have been fraught with problems and today's development does little to alleviate that situation in the immediate term."
Full refunds were originally offered to ticketholders, but many people have taken to Facebook to complain that they were having trouble getting them.
"We are deeply sorry for that," today's message said.
"The liquidators will be continuing the work here to resolve any outstanding issues. We are offering the liquidators as much assistance as we possibly can. All creditors will be contacted."
Eventopia, the ticketing agency responsible for the refunds, has previously called the situation "completely unacceptable" and said it was waiting for the festival to "return the funds" so it could return them to ticketholders.
"We deeply apologise for such an inconvenient situation and the lack of communication. The reason for this is we have been waiting for the promoter of the festival to return the funds to us so we can complete all refunds.
"It has now taken far too long and this is completely unacceptable," Eventopia wrote in emailed messages to ticketholders.
The liquidation notice on Facebook has met angry comments from some ticketholders.
Spencer Morgan wrote: "Given myself and my friends purchased tickets for McLaren on the very first day possible and have not received a cent in refunds, I'm wondering who exactly has? Also I don't know why I'm bothering to type this given you have no interest in corresponding with your customers, even those who supported the event from day one.
"Can we please just be returned the money we gave you?" Abbey Cowley said: "I purchased mine on the same day too and have emailed echo and eventopia a dozen times with no reply. I rung the people who have taken on this liquidation thing and he said we'll be getting correspondence updates on what's happening, they're gonna look at who's owed how much money, and how much money there is to give to them before they can say whether we'll even get our money back or not."
The liquidation message said Simon Dalton and Matt Kemp of Gerry Rea Partners Auckland had been appointed as liquidators and all queries regarding the festival's outstanding obligations should be directed to that office, either by email on info@gerryrea.co.nz or by telephone on: (09) 377 3099.
The message ended by saying: "For this, for your part as customers and suppliers, and for the ignominious end to what was such a promising project I can only express total disappointment. For me this final stage has been an ugly and saddening personal disaster, which has left me financially and physically broken. I am empathic [sic] with everyone who has suffered as a result of believing in this project and am grateful to all of you who invested their faith, trust, time and energy in wanting it to work."
