Business News Gigs & Festivals Live Business Top Stories

Hit Factory Live cancelled

By | Published on Wednesday 11 July 2012

Hit Factory Live

Stock, Aitken & Waterman celebration Hit Factory Live, which was due to take place in London’s Hyde Park today, is the latest casualty of the 2012 UK festival season. Promoter Live Nation announced yesterday afternoon that the show would not go ahead, due to adverse weather conditions, or, rather, the state Hyde Park is in because of all the bloody rain that has fallen of late.

As previously reported, the big selling point of the show was last month’s announcement that Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan would perform their duet ‘Especially For You’, rounding of a day of performances from SAW acts of old like Steps, Rick Astley, Jason Donovan, Bananarama, Dead Or Alive, Pepsi & Shirlie, Princess, Sinitta, Hazell Dean, Sonia, Sybil, 2 Unlimited, Lonnie Gordon and Brother Beyond.

However, over the last two weeks, ticket prices for the event were slashed to as low as £5, from the original £48.50, leading to much speculation that the event had failed to excite as many music fans as originally expected.

Staging the event on a Wednesday seemed like an odd decision from the start – especially as the target audience would be an older demographic – though London’s festival calendar, especially in Hyde Park, is particularly crowded this year because of extra Olympic events. Whether the midweek scheduling, coupled with a poor weather forecast damaging last minute bookings, did result in disappointing ticket sales, and whether that impacted on the decision to cancel, isn’t 100% clear.

That said, there is some credibility with the weather excuse – or, more precisely, that weeks of wet weather, coupled with thousands of people trudging around Hyde Park last weekend for the Wireless Festival, has left the site very worse for wear, which is not good given it’s needed for this weekend’s Hard Rock Calling, not to mention a load of events during the London 2012 Games. Organisers say that the site is not currently safe for an event like Hit Factory Live, plus time is needed to ensure the park is ready for all of Live Nation’s other festival shenanigans.

Live Nation COO John Probyn told CMU: “The moment the Wireless Festival ended, we put in place a massive plan to prepare the site for tomorrow. Eight thousand cubic metres of wood chip is currently being put in place and over the past 24 hours crews have started to make the site safe for our customers. Despite best efforts time has beaten us, but I want to reassure that Hard Rock Calling concerts with Soundgarden, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, plus Madonna on 17 Jul and the BT London Live Opening Ceremony Celebration concert and the events will go ahead”.

Hyde Park manager Steve Edwards added: “Woodchip is being laid on the concert site as part of plans to ensure concert goers can be welcomed back as soon as possible. We are confident that the action being taken will enable Hard Rock Calling and the remainder of the summer concert series to go ahead as planned”.

Tickets for Hit Factory Live purchased from Ticketmaster and See Tickets should be refunded automatically.



READ MORE ABOUT: | |