The organisers of the Sunflowerfest festival have announced it has been cancelled, with ticketholders only offered an 80% refund.
It is the third year in a row the festival has been cancelled, with the organisers citing the impact of Covid as a significant factor in their decision, announced on Tuesday.
However, those who had bought tickets have expressed anger and confusion as to why they are not being offered a full refund.
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The Hillsborough event had been due to run from Friday, July 29, to Sunday, July 31.
On their Facebook page, the organisers of the festival said that they had tried to negotiate better prices for the cost of the event but had "no alternative but to call it quits".
"We tried our best to recover from 2 and now into the 3rd year of Covid but unfortunately too many factors have not worked in our favour," they wrote.
"Tickets sales are not where they need to be, costs are up, (almost double in some cases) and sponsorship and funding is down too."
They also said that much of the money they had raised through ticket sales "had to be spent on site works and infrastructure 2 years ago to try and stage the postponed festival in 2020".
They went on to say that meant they would only be able to refund 80% of people's ticket costs.
Hugh McAvoy from Newtownabbey had bought tickets this year for the festival for himself, his wife and two daughters, at a cost of roughly £290.
He said he had questions about how the 80% figure was reached for refund policies.
"We have paid 100% and they have cancelled the event," he said.
"I don't understand why the people buying tickets in 2022 are giving up 20% of their value to pay for work done in 2020.
"They've just put the statement out and left it, there's been no reply to the original statement."
Hugh said he and his family had been looking forward to the event and he expressed his sympathy for those involved with the event.
"There's a huge amount of work in the background and I'm pretty sure most of it will be volunteer work and I feel really sorry for the people who have put the work in for that," he said.
"But when I looked through the Facebook comments, there was one girl who bought her tickets on Sunday and it was cancelled on Tuesday.
"I can't believe something would collapse in 24-48 hours, they must have seen this coming."
Belfast Live asked the Sunflowerfest organisers for comment, but had not received any at the time of publication.
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