doune the rabbit hole not paying artists

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Posted Friday at 01:15 PM

  On 3/30/2023 at 6:14 PM, Fnmentaluk said:

Interesting lineup , not the depth of last year. 

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Assuming that it goes ahead, its a really decent start that ticks a lot of boxes for me. They are scaling it back to 5K, so they won't have te pulling power of (what the hoped to attract) last year. They just need to start shiftig tickets now....

 

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spudthemariner

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Posted Friday at 01:20 PM

Fairly comprehensive statement from the organizers (from the Facebook page)! Seems to have gone down well with most...

STATEMENT

Now that the 2023 line up has been revealed, we would like to take this opportunity to address directly some of the issues, ongoing challenges and proposed solutions surrounding the very much-loved festival Doune the Rabbit Hole. In particular, the last event in 2022. This statement will fully disclose our current situation and offers an opportunity to help support us in our journey to recovery.

We have also been made aware of a lot of misinformation, unfounded allegations and rumours floating around regarding last year's event. We would like to set the record straight in the interests of transparency for anyone who may be hearing unfounded claims or to anyone who has been unknowingly repeating them.

DOES DOUNE THE RABBIT HOLE OWE SOME ARTISTS/SUPPLIERS/CREW MONEY?

It is true that the event made a loss last year and it is also true that some artists, suppliers and crew have yet to be paid in full. DTRH is doing everything it can to clear any outstanding bills and apologise wholeheartedly for the inconvenience the delays have caused to the people affected. It is worth pointing out, however, that last year Doune paid (figures are approximate) £375,000 to artists, £192,000 to crew and £720,000 to suppliers and we still intend to repay those who have outstanding amounts, so to say no artists or crew got paid is demonstrably untrue on massive scale. Recently, DTRH proposed a plan to BECTU and the Musicians Union to make repayments to anyone affected as well as a vow to pay any artists and crew in advance of this year's festival.

WHY DID YOU LOSE MONEY IN 2022?

Having been forced to postpone the festival in 2020, and then again at the very last minute in 2021, the 2022 edition was already financially challenging. After lobbying the Scottish government intensely for support to no avail (for and alongside the entire sector utilising official channels with government ministers and campaign groups), DTRH attempted to chase insurmountable losses by increasing the scale of the event and majorly enhancing the programme with the hopes of increased footfall. Previous experience From DTRH shows that around 20% of customers pay on the door over the weekend and don't purchase in advance, a further 20% of the audience purchase online two weeks before the event and a further 20% purchase four weeks before that. So that's historically, 60% of Festival goers in the last 6 weeks and 40% in the last 4 weeks before an event.

That has been the case for every single year of the event, with the exception of 2017 when there was a disastrous weather forecast for the weekend. Despite a great weather forecast in 2022, it turned out that this was not an ordinary year and sales expectations evolved in a very different way.

This was the first year of the event's return since the pandemic and the first year since Brexit.

Both of those issues, combined with the wildly increasing cost of fuel, gas and electricity and the impact of the cost of living crisis hitting people hard in July last year meant that DTRH only sold about 5% of its tickets in the last six weeks, 10% in the last 4, and virtually nothing on the gate at all while facing huge cost increases of its own. This meant that around 40% of all DTRH's bills could not be paid. On a total event budget of £2.8m, that means the event was down more than £1.1m and because this happened so close to the event, there was very little that could be done about it. DTRH is not a corporate event with deep pockets, it is an independent, grassroots festival. However, through the personal funds of the event's owner, as well as their friends and family's support, DTRH was able to reduce that to just over £800k. So the owner of the event lost more than £300k on DTRH. On a personal level, that included the entire life savings of two people - one person's entire pension and retirement fund, and a family’s deposit for a house. There is nothing less true to say than that these people took money from the event, are behaving like a corporation, or holding back any money from people who are owed it. That is the most malicious and hurtful piece of speculation we have seen. The owner of the event is poorer as a result of this situation, as well as horrified and ashamed. This is a community festival, not a commercial festival. The aim is not to make money. The owner and frankly, guardian angel of the event over the years, has never taken one penny out as dividend, fee, salary, or expenses etc, and has put in a large six figure sum to keep it going. This speculation has no constructive basis and is utterly devastating for those who have already lost so much yet continue to work tirelessly to resolve the situation in every possible way.

After realising the event owed £800k+, DTRH could have shut down meaning nobody owed money would get paid. Instead, it has been agreed to continue running the event meaning debts can be paid off based on any future profits from the event over a number of years. This is clearly not an ideal situation, and this is not what anybody wanted as their first choice, but DTRH has tried every possible angle to find a solution that would mean the event could pay people back sooner. This was a loss so significant the festival was nearly gone forever. Should DTRH not run as planned in 2023, any ability for anyone to get any of the money they are owed is lost. The only solution is to keep this much loved festival going and pay people back from future profits. We acknowledge that repayments will be on a very late basis, for which we are obviously incredibly sorry, but by working together constructively we can secure the best route to resolution. All festivals, gig venues and nightclubs are under threat and face uniquely challenging circumstances in the post pandemic and post Brexit environment - and we all need your help - now more than ever.

Like all festivals, DTRH is bound to have it's critics, but they are outnumbered by the love and support of thousands who come along every year and enjoy the brilliant artists that we book, who of course deserve proper payment. The number of performers and crew who are up for getting involved this year has been a joy to behold and part of the reason that we never gave up. Please remember that a random person leaving a negative comment on social media does not speak for the thousands of artists, crew members and festival-goers who have grown to love the festival and helped build it over the years.

ARE YOU BLOCKING PEOPLE OR DELETING COMMENTS?

The fact is that many of the allegations DTRH is facing require detailed, considered responses. Where the event's detractors can, without any fear of consequence, basically accuse us of whatever they want without needing to evidence it at any time of day or night, putting undue pressure on our small team. There has been a string of false accusations that range from bad information to trolling for the sake of it. Sometimes these claims are made from people in good faith who are repeating something they read or heard. If anyone has any genuine questions then please feel free to message the page or email us, but the comments thread will no longer be a place to derail the 2023 event which we are working hard to create in some incredibly challenging circumstances as it is, without replying to people who have no connection to the event and nothing but ill-will to spread.

Every creditor has been contacted directly, if you are a creditor and feel like you haven't been kept in the loop sufficiently then please contact us directly.

Our mission is to pay our debts and sustain a much loved music festival, because we believe such things should exist, even if they are very challenging and expensive things to bring to fruition, and sustaining a festival means selling tickets. It is already public knowledge that the 2022 event did not break even and that this resulted in a proportion of artists, suppliers and crew not being paid. In the events sector this is sadly not an unprecedented scenario. However, whilst many companies would take full advantage of their limited liability and simply walk away, we have pledged to sustain the event and pay future proceeds so that everyone can receive what they are owed. And we hope you agree that late is better than never. Given our priorities we are sure you can understand our motivations for utilising our social media accounts to best effect at this time.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH PLAYGROUND FESTIVAL?

This one is easy. DTRH has never had any association whatsoever with Playground festival.

HAVE PUBLIC FUNDS FROM CREATIVE SCOTLAND / EVENT SCOTLAND BEEN STOLEN OR MISUSED?

All of the funding from these organisations reached its intended recipients, including disabled artists, crew and suppliers. It is important to understand that DTRH received a relatively small amount of funding from Creative Scotland and Event Scotland towards delivering the festival. Considering the size and scale of the event, its cultural and wider economic impact, and the fact that both funding organisations were entirely aware of the challenges DTRH faced financially going into the event, we refute all and any implied criticism of the management of these funds.

IN CLOSING

We have released this information in good faith and in the interests of dispelling misinformation and negativity surrounding our actions to date. We hope that by stating our case to you so clearly that you will now be better placed to reach your own positive conclusions and understand and support our tireless efforts to resolve outstanding issues and build stronger foundations for the festival to sustain it well into the future.

We are genuinely excited to be back for 2023, and very much look forward to welcoming our fantastic audiences and artists back to celebrate some more of the very best of performances and activities in the summer of 2023. We hope to help create a raft of wonderful new memories for all those who haven’t yet tasted the DTRH magic – and build fresh and lasting memories for our loyal and brilliant existing audience base – here’s to a fantastic DTRH 2023!

Join us in the scenic Cardross estate this July alongside Spiritualized, Thurston Moore Group, Alabama 3, Black Grape, Asian Dub Foundation, Steve Mason, The Langan Band, Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton Trio, Goldie Lookin Chain & many more by clicking here : http://dounetherabbithole.co.uk/tickets