Organisers of a music festival sold tickets to its event despite not being granted permission by the council.
Phoenix Festival, set to take place on Sherdley Park, St Helens, next May, has been cancelled after the organisers behind the idea failed to gain the correct permissions to hold the festival, before they started selling tickets. Wonderland Music Ltd/Summerfest Ltd were also behind the failed Summerfest, which was set to take place in Blackburn in May 2022, with a very similar line up to Phoenix Festival.
In the wake of Summerfest's cancellation, customers were reportedly left out of pocket and unable to claim a refund. The organisers claimed "the current economic climate causing increased costs out of our control" as the reason for the cancellation.
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Despite this, the same company began advertising St Helens' Phoenix Festival earlier this month, featuring Boy George as a headliner, with early bird tickets available on sites such as Skiddle. As of November 17 2022, all social media pages linked to Phoenix Festival have been deleted.
One person who had ordered tickets for Phoenix Festival said: "What an absolute joke and a con. I bought four tickets at the early bird price and thought it sounded like a fab day in St Helens. I’ve just received an email cancelling the event and refunding me my tickets but not the booking fee of £10.
"Surely they should have sorted the licence out before selling tickets? Boy George and Culture Club were supposed to be there."
A spokesperson for St Helens Borough Council, said: “St Helens Borough Council was approached by Wonderland Music Ltd/Summerfest Ltd seeking permission to use Sherdley Park as the location for the ‘Phoenix Festival’ in May 2023. Whilst preliminary discussions were held with the organisers, the council had not reached agreement on the hire of land and the pre-licence application consultation had not yet taken place.
“The council was unaware that the organisers were intending to advertise the event and sale of tickets prior to the launch of the website last week. Up to this point the Summerfest team had not provided the council with satisfactory event management documents and a meeting was held to discuss this on Tuesday 15 November.
“Following this discussion, the event organisers have issued a cancellation notice for this event to their ticket agencies. We were not aware they were intending to do this.
“Customers who have purchased tickets are advised to contact their ticket provider for refund information.
“The council is committed to bringing high quality events to the borough and will continue to work with experienced event organisers to bring forward a range of good quality events and is disappointed that this proposed event could not meet the required standards to progress.”
The ECHO approached Summerfest Ltd for a comment.
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