Joe GallopOrganisers of independent festival Boomtown Fair (cap. 66,000) have responded to criticism over the lineup for this week’s event.
Organisers of the festival, co-founded by Lak Mitchell and Chris Rutherford, said in a statement that the pressure on the team while building the festival has been “almost unmanageable”. They announced in May that the lineup would be announced the week of the event, and that there would be a focus on spreading the investment in acts across all areas of the festival rather than on headliners.
Among the acts due to play the event, which takes place from 10-14 August near Winchester, are Four Tet, De La Soul, Kojey Radical and Kae Tempest.
Despite some criticism from the public, many of the Boomtown audience have shown their support for the lineup on social media.
Organisers said in a statement, “When we relaunched chapter one and the new version of Boomtown two years ago, we made it very clear that we did not want to dedicate such a large portion of the budget to three acts that sit on top of a poster. Instead, we wanted to spread it across all areas that make Boomtown unique, that was always our ethos, and we wanted to return to that.
“When we announced this change we offered full refunds to people or a % of the ticket money back to support the change, 40,000 of you received a partial refund due to this shift in our offering.
“Since that time, we have experienced challenge after challenge with significant increases in general costs, something which has massively affected all festivals. A show as complex as Boomtown takes a full six weeks to build, plus a 50 strong team at HQ who work towards the event all year round – we are a city like no other after all. The pressure is almost unmanageable but this incredible team are working round the clock to get things ready for you.
“Going forward, we are clear on who we are, and where we are planning to go in the future. We put on one the most ambitious parties on earth, but retain our raw unbounded creativity and space of freedom as best as we can.”