A music festivals going bust or taking a year off has become so tragically commonplace that we don’t even flinch when we hear about it these days. Music festivals, even Aussie music festivals, seem to just come and go in today’s volatile marketplace.
In just the past 12 months, we’ve seen the cancellation of the Urban Country Music Festival, Victoria’s Inca Roads festival, Sydney New Year’s Eve staple Shore Thing, and South Australia’s Spin Off Festival, and that’s just to name a few.
Usually, we hear the news, perhaps reminisce for a moment or two about the good times had at that particular event, then after a bit of mourning, we move on without ever really thinking about that festival again.
Unfortunately, the stakeholders involved in such events don’t have that luxury, especially when the festivals in question were two of the biggest brands in the Australian music festival market, as were the cases with Summadayze and Future Music Festival.
The two events were run by Music Events Holdings, who have run into a spot of trouble with Venn Milner, the accounting company tasked with liquidating the failed event promotions outlet.
As the Herald Sun reports, Venn Milner are looking at suing some of Music Events Holdings’ former directors and company officers, as creditors remain millions of dollars out of pocket.
Music Events Holdings was placed into liquidation back in September 2013, but 52 former suppliers are still owed almost $3 million, while nine former employees at the company are still out of pocket totalling about $200,000.
The struggle to regain the missing funds for the creditors now looks set to go to court, according to documents filed with the corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
In accounts filed with ASIC, liquidators from Venn Milner have requested more time to pursue cash for creditors as the firm “further investigates company books and records”. The documents also mention possible litigation being pursued against former Music Events Holdings higher-ups.
Music Events Holdings was formerly known as Future Entertainment Pty Ltd, but the company changed its name to Music Events, in addition to transferring certain assets, in the months before the business was wound up.
The failure of the company made headlines after its intellectual property, including festival brands such as Future Music, was sold to famed music promoter Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group before the collapse. However, liquidators’ actions are unrelated to the Gudinski transactions.
Mushroom continued to promote Future Music Festival until earlier this year, when the company announced that it would discontinue the brand, citing waning ticket sales. “A point came… where it simply no longer made sense to continue,” said Gudinski in a statement at the time.
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“We believe in the festival industry in Australia and plan to announce an exciting new festival concept in the coming months.” The announcement came less than a month after the conclusion of the festival’s 2015 event and the cancellation of its Asia leg.
Summadayze, meanwhile, was indeed a victim of the Music Events collapse. “I’d heard there were difficulties after this year’s Summadayze but I didn’t really get a sense of the scale of it until we started due diligence, a couple of months ago,” Gudinski told The Age back in 2013.
It was revealed during a hearing in federal court at the time that Future Entertainment had transferred all assets, including trademarks, out of an ailing company, potentially limiting the assets available to the liquidator for distribution to unpaid creditors.
It was believed Future Entertainment had known they were in financial trouble for nearly a year, but decided to proceed with Future Music Festival 2013 and Summadaye 2013 regardless, but as Fairfax pointed out, a number of creditors were still owed money.
