Benicassim Powers Back

Last year Benicassim Festival’s crowd dropped by one-third but signs are clear that this year’s event will see it back on track.

The average daily crowd for a 2010 bill that included Kasabian, Julian Casablancas, The Prodigy, Gorillaz, Ray Davies and Vampire Weekend was around 32,000, but this year’s sales are already running 20 percent higher than that. Nearly all of the 40,000 four-day tickets are sold.

The last 2,000 went on sale May 12 and, with more than a month to go, the event on Spain’s northeastern coast may equal the 50,000 sellout it last achieved in 2009.

This is good news for former Mean Fiddler chief Vince Power, who’s referred to Benicassim as his favourite festival, particularly at a time when he’s trying to coax the UK’s alternative investment market into providing him with the money to start more festivals.

He’s looking for his Music Festivals company, which has shareholders including top Irish promoter Denis Desmond, The Workers Beer Company and a handful of private investors, to raise up to £10 million.

Merchant Securities has been hired to take the company to the market.

In 2001 Power floated Mean Fiddler on the alternative investment market and in 2005 sold it for £39 million to a new company launched by Desmond and what’s now Live Nation.

He reportedly pocketed £13 million from the deal but lost nearly £8 million of it on his music promotions and pubs business, which went into administration last year. He subsequently bought it back from the administrator for £600,000.

The acts at this year’s Benicassim July 14-17 include Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Mumford & Sons and Portishead.