@AGENT 15 392108 wrote:
Whats happening this year! Festival after festival being cancelled whats changed in the licenceing ?
the licensing laws have been exactly the same for the past 5 years. Even the conservacrats haven’t made that many changes as of yet.
However, there has been a massive backlash against any form of “late night economy” due to the cops and NHS getting much better at recording how many offences and incidents are recorded against it.
Established night time venues are just about getting away with staying open due to high taxes on alcohol and their yearly accounts normally showing a profit which is also taxable. whilst our govt piss most of this away on pointless wars (albeit fuelled by the peoples consumerism and oil addiction), some proportion does go back to the NHS and more to the cops and councils who pick up the pieces of how pissheads/townies behave.
many venue owners tend to live in or near the areas, contribute to the local economy themselves in their taxes and are traceable and accountable. This tends to mean they don’t do anything too stupid /risky for fear of losing their livelihoods.
However festivals are associated with large transient crowds, younger more risk taking management, drug culture and a higher level of overdoses (especially since mephedrone). Half of them make a loss, barely break even or even go bust so stuff like emergency service invoices and licensing fees aren’t always paid in full , or payment is delayed. SOCA also suspect certain dance music event organisers of funding their events directly or indirectly through the large scale sale of drugs.
Festival organisers are more stubborn about resisting anti-drugs initiatives (compared to shitty mainstream places where they let in whatever drugs dogs, feds the authorities want), so some cancel events rather than caving in to stuff like extra searches which will clearly put people off.
Also due to euro-regions a bad incident in a area 100 miles away can affect a local festival.
Eastern region is Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, Cambs, Beds and Herts so stuff like violence at Luton carnival, fighting at daytime festivals in Norfolk and the rapes at Latitude in Suffolk are black marks against on all events.
Add to this the fact that Eastern region businesses can make as much or more money from normal seaside leisure, and less controversial events so its becoming harder and harder to put on a event here. Its different in London which is the capital and up North where the local economy can’t afford to turn down business even if the funders are a bit shady and might have links with drugs etc – take a look at our own legal events and its clearly apparent whats going on.
