www.big-green-gathering.com/index.php?pageid=1
The Police have closed this one down. all the bands and traders are now without an event. Seems very strange because this is an established event.
Several venue based festivals this weekend have also shut down before opening - ticket sales have dropped off a cliff for many events and bands are turning up to events to find them cancelled.
On My Space several bands have found that their venues have closed down this week as well.
It seems that the recession is not only hitting advance ticket sales - it is now hitting directly the public.
I visited 20 venues last night across London to see how they were doing. All of them were well under capacity - most were near empty - I went from 100 capacity venues to 2000 capacity venues. Only saw one Police incident ( outside Camden Rock !! ) in my travels - but Koko and the Forum were less than half full - venues in the West End seemed to be less than half full - and in fact the only venue which seemed to be anywhere near capacity was the Bull and Gate. Some even seemed to have closed early at 11p.m on a Saturday.
The constant excuse I hear from venue owners and promoters is that the big Festivals have clobbered the venues this summer. But that cant be the reason why Camden and West End and Kentish Town were like a Monday night on a Saturday in the peak holiday time on the streets and even in the pubs.
Bands should be checking that their events are on this week and making sure their audiences are going to turn up to support them. Otherwise Live Music is going to take a bad hit this summer.
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