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Business News Gigs & Festivals
Truck Festival to return with new promoters
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 24 January 2012
Organisers of the Truck Festival have announced that the event will return this July under new management.
As previously reported, it was revealed last August that the 2011 edition of the totally independent Truck Fest had caused financial problems for the events founder’s and promoters Robin and Joe Bennett. At the time Robin admitted things weren’t looking good, and in September the duo’s company, which promoted the event, went into administration.
Commenting on that experience yesterday, Robin told CMU: “The company which traded as Truck Festival 2011 went into administration in September because it was unable to cover the debts incurred by last year’s event. As directors of that company, and on a personal level, Joe and I deeply regret this, and are profoundly sorry for the difficulty this caused. This was the first time we had been unable to pay people fully in thirteen years of Truck Festival”.
Some feared that the administration might bring an end to the popular festival, but, while the Bennett brothers have decided to step back from the event, yesterday they announced Truck would continue with new promoters from this summer, in the form of the team behind the Y-Not festival, which won the Grass Roots Festival Award at last year’s UK Festival Awards.
Confirming that Y-Not would take over Truck, the Bennetts said in a statement yesterday: “Since last year’s event, which was at the time hailed as a great success, many rumours and half-truths have abounded (appropriately, as the event closed with a performance of ‘Rumours’ by Fleetwood Mac) and many people have been asking whether the festival will return. The answer is: yes, under new management and with a back to basics approach”.
They added: “We have always felt a great responsibility for the integrity and sustainability of Truck Festival, which grew so quickly and with such enthusiasm from very humble beginnings in 1998. However, after a notoriously difficult summer of trading for Truck Festival, and festivals in general, we have decided it is time for us to step down from our role at the event. During the fourteen years of its existence, since we started it round our kitchen table, the festival has suffered various threats and disasters, from floods and foot-and-mouth to finances, and taken on a life of its own. We like to think it has brought joy to a lot of people. It’s right for this tradition with so many benefits to the community to continue; and a chance encounter with the organisers of Y-Not festival in Derbyshire has given it the opportunity to do so”.
Concluding, they said: “We are glad to say that, rather than finish for good or be in corporate hands, the festival in 2012 will go back to basics under the management of the Y-Not team. We feel they are the right people to take on the event, give it a fresh start and rebuild it over the next few years, and we hope you’ll give them your full support”.
Truck 2012 will take place at Hill Farm, Steventon on 20 and 21 Jul.
