Tom HallLabour Live, a one-day music festival scheduled at White Hart Lane in North London for 16 June, has been panned as ‘an embarrassment for the party’ after poor ticket sales.
The event, tickets for which are £35 – with a £5 discount for the unemployed, has failed to attract bookings.
Insiders say just 1,800 of the total 20,000 available have been sold, leading organisers to make a big social media push via MP’s social media accounts.
Additionally, Unite – Britain’s largest trade union a powerful institutional supporter of party leader Jeremy Corbyn within the Labour movement – has made a bulk purchase of 1,000 tickets, which it it plans to give away for free to Unite members.
Billed as a ‘thank you’ to party activists for their general election effort, Labour Live faced opposition from inside the party, leading to a compromise in which no money was allocated to book acts, leading many Labour-friendly artists to decline.
Organisers faced particular criticism for reportedly not attempting to book Stormzy, the Mercury-nominated grime star, and supporter of Corbyn, until it was too late for his busy scheduling.
The biggest name at the festival is The Magic Numbers.
Corbynites who will be appearing at the festival include the shadow cabinet: John McDonnell and Kate Osamor; from the media: Owen Jones, Corbyn’s biographer Alex Nunns and the freelance journalist Rachel Shabi.
Corbyn himself will also make an appearance. The politician made a popular speech at his Glastonbury slot in 2017.