Pukkelpop’s Good Start

Belgium’s Pukkelpop has made a good start to its fight back to financial fitness by selling out the Saturday of this year’s festival, organisers said.

The “combi” tickets for Thursday and Friday are selling fast and the leading Belgian festival, which was started in 1985, may bounce back from last year’s tragedy with a full house.

As last year’s festival was beginning, a violent storm tore through the site and forced organisers to cancel the event.
It wasn’t possible to make an insurance claim to cover the cost of the tragic incident that uprooted trees, leveled two stages, killed five people and injured dozens more, because the disaster was classified as a force majeure, or unavoidable accident.

It left the event with the problem of refunding 66,000 ticket-holders and settling with whatever bands and suppliers needed paying.

The ticket-holders are being offered food and drink vouchers for the next three editions of the festival as compensation.

The acts at this year’s Pukkelpop Aug. 16-18 include Foo Fighters, Björk, The Black Keys, The Gaslight Anthem and Wilco.