no Hope & no Glory

Hope & Glory 2017

Saturday 5th to Sunday 6th August 2017
William Brown Street, St George's Quarter, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 1JJ, England
£89 for the weekend, £55 either day

Daily capacity: 12,500

In what is starting to look like this summer's festival theme, another festival has been hit by chaos. This time it was Liverpool urban festival Hope & Glory, which happened behind St George's Hall, Liverpool over the weekend just gone - or didn't.

Saturday's entertainment went ahead but with dis-organisation and cancelled & late-performing acts as the main talking points before the festival's official twitter account tweeted just after 10am on Sunday ...

"no festival today"

Just that, and nothing more.

Rather ironically, 24 hours earlier their tweet had been "ARE YOU READY?" The festival-goers were but the festival was not.

With no apology for the cancellation - firstly saying they weren't proceeding "following the unfair and vitriolic comments" about Saturday which even had Tim Booth of James tweeting about the disorganisation - there were also tweets that attempted to shamelessly shift responsibility towards the event's production manager, who was of course employed by the organisers.

For refunds, the official twitter account is saying for ticket buyers to contact the point of purchase, but whether that will give refund joy is yet to be seen. The official twitter has tweeted this morning when asked if the festival will be issuing refunds "Ran out of refunds sorry." The twitter is currently saying that "A full statement will be issued at noon today.".

UPDATE: Hope & Glory's statement is now available on their facebook.

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This is just one example of a number of disappointments brought onto festival goers this summer, with festival goers slamming the shambles and cost-cuttings at some events, while other and more-damning issues have also come to light sometimes outside of the public's eye.

And yet even the most-respected festivals can sometimes have issues as the traffic chaos at the opening of Glastonbury 2016 showed. A good festival organiser takes it on board, and rectifies things &/or comes up with a better plan for next time.

eFestivals suspects that one of the thoughts this autumn among some festival organisers will be: where are the festival goers going and how do we keep them? To which the first answer is always by treating them with respect, delivering what you have promised and not taking the piss out of them.

eFestivals might have more to say on this theme in the near future, but would much rather not have the need to do that.

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