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Artists pull out of ATP Iceland citing “failure to honour agreements”

By | Published on Wednesday 15 June 2016

ATP Iceland

When the Drive Like Jehu curated ATP Festival was cancelled at the last minute in April, the event’s promoter was keen to stress that its upcoming ATP Iceland event was run by a separate company and unaffected by the UK operation’s latest financial problems. However, with several artists now pulling out of the imminent festival, concerns have again been raised about whether nor not the show will actually go ahead.

With ATP Iceland due to take place at the beginning of next month, Múm and Blanck Mass both cancelled their scheduled performances there in recent weeks, while Fabio Frizzi joined them in bailing on the event yesterday.

A spokesperson for Frizzi said on Twitter: “We’ve made every effort to make this show happen, but unfortunately the lack of communication and the failure to honour any of the agreements that we made with Barry Hogan (ATP), made it impossible for us to perform at this year’s ATP Iceland. It is a great shame since as we were very excited about these shows”.

Múm issued a similar statement late last month, saying: “Unfortunately the terms of the agreement with the festival have not been honoured and the band has been left with no other option than to pull out of the line-up”.

Blanck Mass, aka Fuck Buttons’ Benjamin Power, did not comment on contractual issues, but said in a statement that it was “just not possible to be able to play”.

While some new acts have been drip fed onto the bill in recent weeks, there are still only 26 artists listed on the line-up for the three-day event. The line-ups for each day have not yet been announced either, meaning that day tickets are yet to go on sale.

As previously reported, despite the continued popularity of its alternative music events, ATP has a history of cancelling festivals at the last minute. The latest round of troubles began in March, when the ATP company was unable to meet its financial commitments to holiday camp operator Pontins, which was hosting two planned festivals. The first of these, curated by comedian Stewart Lee, did go ahead. However, the second, curated by Drive Like Jehu, was first moved to Manchester and then cancelled with less than a week to go.

ATP did not respond to a request for comment.



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