Live at Loch Lomond pulls the plug

Live at Loch Lomond, which has happened on the shores of Loch Lomond in Scotland in both 2007 and 2008, won't be happening in 2009.

The festival's promoter, Ricky Magowan, told Scotland's Sunday Mail (here) that he hopes that the event will return to Balloch at a later date but says he is concentrating on launching a new all-dance music festival at Ingliston, Edinburgh, in August.

Ricky told the Sunday Mail: "Live At Loch Lomond 2009 is not happening due to a number of factors, from practical issues at the site over the last two years to the credit crunch. Although the site is picturesque, it wasn't practical for our event, not to mention two years of downpours on a location at the bottom of a hill by a loch. Unfortunately, being a national park, we had to restore the grass after the event to get the area back to its original condition, which cost £100,000. We weren't allowed vehicle movement on site due to health and safety concerns so we had to boat all artists from Cameron House to backstage - which they loved but cost us £15,000 per event.

Over the two years we spent around £2.5million on Live at Loch Lomond. With costs like this we were really up against it and in the current climate it would be simply impossible to make money without charging ridiculous prices. We are hugely disappointed we won't be back next year as the local community, police and council were all great to work with. But we hope to return to the site at a later date with a different format.

Last summer's festival had bands including The Sex Pistols, Groove Armada, Ocean Colour Scene and Happy Mondays.



Returning to his dance music roots, Ricky has plans for a huge dance festival in 2009 called EH1, to happen at the Showground in Ingliston, Edinburgh from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th August. EH1 will see Colours and Streetrave, the names under which Ricky has run dance events all over Scotland for years, mark their 20th anniversary with major stars from the last two decades of dance.

Other regular Scottish festivals, all run by different promoters, such as Rock Ness, T in the Park, Belladrum, Connect and Loopallu are all expected to go ahead next year as normal.

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