Rest In Peace & Love

Growing competition in the Swedish outdoor market has led to its first major casualty as Peace & Love, which until recently was the country’s biggest crowd-puller – has filed for bankruptcy.

The festival at Borlänge June 25-29, which had a lineup that included Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, and First Aid Kit, has been canceled.

It’s the same weekend that German promoter FKP Scorpio introduces its new Bravalla Festival, which is on a on a massive site with a huge potential capacity at Norkopping – about a three-hour drive from the Peace & Love site.

The Scorpio festival has Green Day, Rammstein, In Flames, Volbeat, Johnossi, and Armin Van Buuren.

Peace & Love – which two years ago set a new attendance record by doing 45,000 per day – can usually count on shifting  27,000 tickets during May and June, but The Local says this year it’s sold less than 10,000.

“With 9,000 tickets sold, we are far short of our goal,” a spokesman for the organizers told the English-language paper. “We’re unable to pay our operating costs and the closer the festival comes, the harder it gets to reorganize and cancel.”

A boost in ticket sales, expected to come after Swedes receive their monthly paychecks, failed to materialize in the week before the festival declared bankruptcy May 28, 2013.

“We’ll never know how many people who waited, who thought about buying tickets, and who wanted to experience what should have been the summer’s most magical happening,” the organizers said in a statement.

“We are all extremely sorry and obviously feel extra badly for those of you who have looked forward to, planned, and bought tickets,” said Jesper Heed from Peace & Love’s management team.

Peace & Love is referring all inquiries to a press conference at its Borlange HQ May 28, although one attendee told Pollstar it didn’t reveal any new information.

Last year’s festival reportedly lost something in the region of 16 million Swedish krona ($2.41 million), but made deals with creditors to avoid going bust.

The creditors were promised half of what they were owed over four payments with the final one to be made by the end of May – or three days after it filed for bankruptcy.

Scorpio chief Folkert Koopmans says his Bravalla Festival has sold 32,000 of its 40,000 tickets, but feels that may be a little slow because people have lost faith in the market.

He cites the 2010 bankruptcies of Hultsfred Festival, although Koopmans subsequently bought it out of receivership, and Arvika, as well as the more recent bankruptcies of Peace & Love and Siesta.

Siesta, a 10,000-capacity outdoor at Hässleholm, canceled two weeks ago. The May 31 to June 2 lineup would have included Death Cab For Cutie, NOFX, The Hives, Lars Winnerbäck, and Timbuktu.

It’s believed it sold less than one-fourth of its tickets. A note on the festival website says organizers will do “everything in our power” to ensure ticketholders get their money back.

Koopmans’ June festivals in Germany – such as Hurricane and Southside – have already sold out. Hultsfred Festival (June 13-15), the other Swedish outdoor his company promotes in June, has so far done only two-thirds of its 15,000-capacity.

The Hultsfred bill has Arctic Monkeys, Portishead, Fatboy Slim, Band Of Horses, Phoenix, The Flaming Lips, Two Door Cinema Club, and Knife Party.