Ursynalia In The Dock

Fundacja Bonum, the organization set up to run the city-funded festival in 2002, is now listed as a “non-active” company.

Polish newspaper reports say it owes money to most of the local suppliers who worked on this year’s event (May 31 to June 2).

The festival itself was a disaster with ZZ Top, Bad Religion, Steve Aoki, Five Finger Death Punch, and Polish rockers Anti-Tank Nun pulling out, all claiming they were advertised before contracts were signed or that their deposits didn’t arrive.

They were all scheduled to play the festival’s final day, which still went ahead with Motorhead, Bullet For My Valentine, HIM, Parkway Drive, 3 Doors Down, Pendulum, and Gentleman.

The fest shifted a reported 12,000 tickets.

Reports coming out of Warsaw suggested Arek Michalski of Arena Live Production, who was responsible for booking the acts and organizing production, had announced unconfirmed acts in order to stimulate slow ticket sales.

Michalski wouldn’t comment to Pollstar at the time, although he did say fans who attended on the third day could get a 50 percent discount on the 2014 fest.

In 2009 Michalski was behind Hunter Fest, which had no-shows from Machine Head, Tiamat, Arch Enemy and Epica.

They also pulled out claiming contractual problems including the non-payment of deposits. Some fans who’d bought tickets for Hunter Fest put tape on their festival T-shirts to cover the names of the acts that pulled out.