Boycott Takes Toll On Beatbox

Even before the various representatives of Roskilde, Skanderborg (Smukfest), Jelling and Nibe festivals meet Oct. 27, Sørensen says he’s already had to shed three of his staff and swallow the cost of moving out of the Copenhagen office he’d shared with former partner Mads Sørensen.

The festivals boycotted Beatbox and Brian Nielsen’s Århus-based Skandinavian because of their involvement with FKP Scorpio, the German promoter that’s stunned the Danish market by setting up a new festival called Tinderbox in Odense. However, Peter and Mads had split their business before the latter sold his concert operation to Scorpio, and Nielsen and partner Flemming Myllerup have subsequently let Skandinavian go in a management buyout.

“I have had to tell the staff how everything we have worked for over the past decade has now been smashed beyond recognition by four festivals’ clumsy, disrespectful and deeply unpleasant attack on our integrity and credibility … without the slightest willingness for dialogue, cooperation or fairness,” Sørensen wrote in an open letter to the festivals published by Funen Morning News. “It hurts to have to fire people – all with family and children – who are now without work and income.”

Sørensen earlier wrote to leading daily paper Politiken to say his company is the victim of “a completely unfair attack.”

Even after the splitting of Beatbox was made clear to the festivals, they remained concerned that the agency and concert sides still shared the same office building and a couple of staff. Sørensen’s now going through what he describes as a “forced divorce” and is looking to move the agency business to new premises.

He wasn’t able to confirm a new office address at press time. The arrival of Tinderbox has prompted widespread coverage in the Danish media, with major national TV network TV-2 seeking out Scorpio chief Folkert Koopmans to ask “who is it that can shake the music industry so thoroughly?”