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ATP founder explains spring festival cull
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 10 May 2011
All Tomorrow’s Parties founder Barry Hogan has explained the company’s decision to cease running its festivals in May.
As previously reported, a statement released last Wednesday read: “From now on we will host just two ATP festival weekends at Minehead in December (in addition to our I’ll Be Your Mirror city-based events like our Portishead event in London this July). So if you haven’t got tickets for the Animal Collective weekend and don’t want to miss out on the last May ATP, tickets are still available”.
In an interview with The 405, founder Barry Hogan explained: “We seem to have caused a big reaction when we announced this and emotions seem to range from being genuinely upset to also very angry. The decision was not made lightly – we have been wrestling with it for at least twelve months. It was not something we decided on Wednesday morning and announced that same afternoon. A lot of thought went into it, regardless of what people think. Unfortunately, the numbers in May have diminished over the past three years”.
He continued: “We thought if we did just one event in May it would work but that didn’t seem to help much either. I think folks now have too much choice and also in spring it’s high season at the holiday resort so the rates are much higher than they are in December. I do realise the weather is bound to be nicer in May but it’s not like the venue is outdoors”.
Finally he said: “Some suggested we should do one in December and one in May but it’s just not cost effective in May any longer unless we raised the ticket price by £25, which I doubt anyone would want to pay. I think ATP has been very fortunate to have lasted so long and in order for us to keep it going we are looking to staging the December line-ups for the foreseeable future. We can probably re-introduce the spring at some point but for now, rather than to keep losing money we are going to make sure we survive the congested festival climate and keep the standard maintained for the next few years”.
Ahead of this weekend’s final May bash, Hogan put together a fantastic Powers Of Ten playlist featuring some of his favourite music for us. You can check that out here.
