Power Tries To Rebuild
Festival Empire

While the deal for Vince Power to buy back Benicassim Festival from the administrators is set to complete Dec. 19, All Music Live – his new company – is also about to buy back what’s left of the UK’s Hop Farm Festival.

Power’s Music Festivals PLC, which owned the Spanish festival, went into administration after poor attendance at this year’s event.

It did about 80 percent of its 50,000-capacity, while BBK Live – a rival festival staged over the same weekend in Bilbao – had record-breaking attendances and challenged Benicassim’s position as the country’s biggest festival.

Local sales clearly took a knock, as fewer than 30 percent of the visitors to the festival were from Spain. Last year it was 45 percent.

Kent Festivals Ltd., an offshoot that owned Hop Farm, was another victim of an erratic summer. It went into liquidation Nov. 16.

Jonathan Lane, who’s handling the insolvency for Leonard Curtis, said an agreement has been reached for Power to buy back the festival and “whatever goodwill” is attached to it.

He said Kent Festivals had no other assets and confirmed there will be no money left to make any payments to creditors.
At the end of September, Power put Music Festivals Plc. into administration as the company’s shares were suspended on the Alternative Investment Market.

The price had plummeted to 2.12 pence, dropping the company’s market capitalization to about £310,000. A year earlier it had floated with a  value around £10 million ($16.2 million).