Features
Hop Farm Row Rumbles On
The row over how many Hop Farm festivals will be staged in the UK this summer continues as the organisers of a new event bearing that name doubted whether Vince Power – who for five years ran a Hop Farm at Paddock Wood – would use it again in 2014.
“Vince put out information saying it was going to happen but we are pretty confident it is not going to happen,” Miguel Fenton – the new event’s communications manager – told Kent Messenger. “If it does it will not be called the Hop Farm Music Festival because it is not at the Hop Farm,” he explained.
“He may put on a concert but he can call it the Vince Power Concerts. I would find it unusual if he is still choosing to use the Hop Farm name.”
Irish promoter and former Mean Fiddler Music Group owner Power began Hop Farm at Paddock Wood in 2008, but last year’s edition was canceled due to poor ticket sales.
The acts on the bill included My Bloody Valentine, The Cribs, Gaz Coombes and The Lightning Seeds. A couple of months later, Power’s Music Festivals PLC – which was behind the event – went into administration with debts of £4.8 million.
However, this year Power has announced he will promote a Hop Farm on a new site a few miles away at Tunbridge Wells.
“Vince Power’s Hop Farm Music Festival is set to return to Kent in 2014, at a new site in Tunbridge Wells,” says a post on the original Hop Farm Music Festival’s website.
Power’s post appeared in October but there’s been no further news. The new Hop Farm has announced Ray Davies and Brian Wilson among its headliners. Power’s event is yet to name any acts.