Summer Sessions Iveagh Gardens 2012

Rud

Does anybody know what the story with these gigs are?
http://www.summersessions.ie/#

I'm asking because we were going to buy tickets for the Sunday but then Human League posted this up on their Facebook earlier today(Friday)
https://www.facebook.com/thehumanleague/posts/324212587646521?notif_t=feed_comment_reply

Is this going to be the case with all the bands that could lead to a situation where it is just another festival that's cancelled?

Savman

The comments from Human League are pretty damning. You'd need your head examined to purchase tickets for this thing IMHO.

NIBBS

I only heard about these gigs on Thurs - and early Fri was told The Human League had pulled out - like Savman said they're statement is pretty damning - and to be honest even if that wasn't the full story it looks like this thing hasn't been run properly, not a great deal of advertising or info about the weekend, with HL out they have made no announcement themselves (well nothing on their site yesterday, they just removed HL from the line up yesterday morning and left the pic up - it's not looking good at all...

personally there's no way I'd pay €50 on the Sunday to see The Stranglers and The Undertones, crazy if they think they'll get people to do that, and as the Headliners for Sun have pulled out they should also be offering refunds........no idea who the guy is running this but it's not coming across as very professional - advertising Ocean Colour Scene wasn't a bright move either......though the Sat lineup interests me I won't be buying in advance....

LetsZep

Yeah seems like a bit of a fiasco. I'd imagine if one band hasn't been paid they could all start to fall like dominos.

Also the Saturday: Razorlight, Simon & Oscar (which they originally wrongly publicized as Ocean Colour Scene full band) and Stereo MC's. 50euro a ticket, value?

delbertgrady

Hmmm. Too much time, effort (and money) invested into an unnecessarily elaborate festival website, rather than paying "Phil" and "The Girls".

indiewindy

Not promoted by a major promoter
No media partner
No sponsor
No Advertising (that I have seen)

Someone took a big risk on this, 3 days is ambitious

NIBBS

indiewindy wrote: »

Not promoted by a major promoter
No media partner
No sponsor
No Advertising (that I have seen)

Someone took a big risk on this, 3 days is ambitious

Was very surprised to have told about it and who was on the lineup and hadn't seen anything about it anywhere, and the more I see and think about it the whole thing looks like someone thought this would be a great idea but maybe not experience at running something this size.......best of luck to them, but when a headliner pulls out with that kind of statement it doesn't bode well.....

Eggonyerface

One of the comments : "don't you want them greaney?!"

Classic

monthehoops

Ticketgroup. Nuff said.

delbertgrady

Eggonyerface wrote: »

One of the comments : "don't you want them greaney?!" Classic

I was also quite impressed with the "Poor little Greaney" comment.

Furious-Red

One of the promoters of the Iveagh Gardens Summer Sessions, John Greaney, says that the May Bank Holiday event will “in all probability be cancelled.”

This follows the announcement by one of the headliners, The Human League on Friday, that they were pulling out of the gig. Their statement – details of which are disputed by Greaney – reads as follows:

“We have been forced, reluctantly, to withdraw from this event by the repeated failure of the promoter, Mr. John Greaney of The Event Company in Naas, to make any of the scheduled payments we were due under the terms of our contract with him whatsoever, indeed he has to date paid us nothing at all to guarantee this show and this despite our giving him several extensions to the original contracted deadline. He has also now stopped replying to our e-mails and all attempts to contact him by telephone this morning have failed so we must regretfully conclude that he has no intention of honouring our agreement with him and act accordingly.

“We would urge any and all of our fans who bought a ticket for this event to contact their point of purchase for a refund and again we offer our sincere apologies for this turn of events. We have tried our very best to ensure this concert took place but without some guarantee our costs will be reimbursed to us we cannot book air tickets, ferries and so on, so events are now beyond our control.”

Talking to Hot Press this morning, John Greaney said, “It’s true, they haven’t been paid but that was partly down to a delay in them providing us with bank account details. I have been available and in contact with the band’s manager, Simon Watson, who I’ve worked with before on a gig by the Fun Loving Criminals who he also manages. The fact of the matter is that we’ve only sold £50,000 worth of tickets for a gig that will cost us €500,000 to stage. We had an additional financier to ready to come in but he got afraid when sales didn’t take off as we’d anticipated. Even if we cancel now we’ll be down €200,000.”

Reacting to online criticism from Human League fans, Greaney continued: “I’m no novice. I put 30,000 people into a stadium in Galway for a Westlife concert and brought the likes of Il Divo, Jose Carreras and Bryan Ferry to the Kildruddery House Festival. We’ve sent out 250,000 texts, got coverage on Today FM and in the Irish Times and Hot Press and everything else we could do to promote it. I asked Simon Watson if they’d hang on ‘til after one of the other big names, Stereo MCs, had appeared on Friday’s Late Late Show – we’ve had on acts there before and immediately shifted 1,000 or 2,000 tickets – but they didn’t want to wait and made their announcement beforehand.

“All of the ticket money is still in the Ticketgroup.ie account, so if the Summer Sessions is cancelled people will get full refunds within seven to fourteen days. We’ve really done our best on this and would like to apologise to fans for any inconvenience caused.”

honru

Never even knew this was on... figures.

s8n

seems to have been a disaster from day one. Isn't this the second big Irish outdoor event involving Razorlight to go tits up (I recall something in Donnybrook a couple of years back)

1tk

Just got an e-mail from The Undertones in the last five minutes saying that this event has been cancelled.

Irish Aris

was a long shot to begin with, I guess.

btw, is Iveagh Gardens a good place for a concert? I am still considering to see Rufus Wainwright in July there.

LostinKildare

Stranglers pulled out -- copy and paste job of the Human League's announcement:

http://www.thestranglers.net/?p=5823

1tk

Excellent place for a gig. Have been to a few gigs there (Paloma Faith, Tori Amos, Comedy Festival). Central location, good atmosphere and not too crowded. Recommended.

tinyjiney

The promoter needs a good kick up the pollocks........:mad:

http://www.thestranglers.net/?p=5823

mike65

full story here, amateur hour

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0418/1224314875343.html

CardBordWindow

Jaysus that's bad form! TWO headlines to pull out due to non-payment. Fair play to the Stranglers for making the reason known too.

NIBBS

yeah The Stranglers quoting the same reason as Human League means that he hadn't paid because of the lack of ticket sales rather than not having bank details.......the thing is this was never going ahead either way with so few tickets sold......end of story.....they apparently sent hundreds of thousands of texts out ???? not much poing in that if people don't know what it is in the first place.....pity, would have been a nice place to have a festival