Ban On Beer Sponsor’s Product

The crowd at Istanbul’s Efes Pilsen One Love Festival started on a downer when the government banned the sale of alcohol on the 20,000-capacity university campus site near the city centre.

Neither was it a great start for Efes Pilsen, the festival’s headline sponsor and brewer of one of Turkey’s most popular beers, which was ready to sell gallons of its product.

The right-wing government apparently reacted to complaints about the crowd the festival attracts, which had come from people who no longer want it in their back yard.

“I can’t understand why the government did this because of a few complaints,” Pozitif Productions festival promoter Baris Basaran told Pollstar. “I had spent 10 days trying to convince the authority that it shouldn’t do this and I thought I’d achieved that.”

At the end of the July 14-15 event, local newspapers began reporting complaints about the number of drunken youngsters wandering the streets surrounding the site, having presumably had their alcohol fix before entering the dry zone inside the festival gates.

The acts having to play a dry gig Istanbul included Pulp, Damien Rice, Kaiser Chiefs, Yuk, Selah Sue, and Replikas.