plug pulled on Portsmouth & Southsea Festival

the festival is cancelled due to lack of ticket sales

The directors of the Portsmouth and Southsea Festival, planned for the 9th-12th October 2008, are devastated to announce its cancellation.

Despite 10 months of planning, complying with all council requirements and securing a strong line-up, ticket sales are too low to be able to proceed.

All festivals rely on strong advance sales and Portsmouth and Southsea Festival has become the 40th festival this year to fall foul of low sales, which we believe to be mainly due to the global ecomonic slowdown.

We are disappointed for the 2,000 people who had committed to come to the event, and can assure them of a refund. Full details can be found on our web-site - www.psfestival.co.uk.

11,000 people needed to attend to make the event loss making, but viable and the gulf between what needed to be achieved and the current position was too great with only 24 days to go.

We are also disappointed for the local bands - especially the Rocktober winners - and club promoters who were hoping to perform.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Portsmouth City Council and local councillors who have been so supportive throughout the planning stages.

We would also like to thank The News and Wave 105, who have been tremendous in their support and coverage of the event.

It is important to stress that no local business or private individual has parted with any money to trade at the festival. The only financial losers from cancellation are the festival's directors.

We truly believe that Portsmouth deserves to have a major music event and will reconsider our position in 2009.