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Festicket administrators need to urgently hear from promoters who believed their ticket monies were being held in trust
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 1 December 2022
Promoters owed money by collapsed ticketing firm Festicket have been urged to contact the company’s administrators by tomorrow. Especially if they were under the impression that monies generated by the sale of their tickets via Festicket was being held in trust.
Festicket – which also owned Event Genius and Ticket Arena – formally fell into administration in September, blaming its collapse on the COVID shutdowns of live music, and the huge strain that put on the wider live and ticketing sectors.
A report from the firm’s administrators confirmed that the ticketing business has debts of £22,560,175, of which £18,481.517 is owed to promoters who had sold tickets via a Festicket owned platform. A total of 115 promoters are owed money, with a number of those owed in excess of a £1 million, including AEG Presents, Event Horizon, Festco, Lost Paradise Glenworth Valley, Mad Cool and Slammin Events.
Prior to the publication of that administrator report, a number of promoters that used Festicket’s services had said they were under the impression that monies collected from the sale of their tickets was being kept apart from the ticketing firm’s core finances. Which would mean that money would be protected from any issues the Festicket business found itself in.
The administrators noted this in their report, but added: “Our understanding is that the company did not segregate or ring-fence any assets for the benefit of specific parties”. With that in mind, the administrators need to understand the basis on which some promoters assumed their ticket income was being held in trust.
According to IQ, at the request of the administrators, the Insolvency And Companies Court previously ordered that any promoter asserting that its monies should have been held in trust by Festicket must notify the administrators of this “trust claim” by no later than 4pm tomorrow, 2 Dec.
A letter has been circulating around the live industry urging all and any affected promoters to meet that deadline. Another court hearing to discuss the ongoing Festicket administration is then scheduled for 9 Dec.
