Malmesbury carnival flop costs £20,000

Malmesbury Carnival is facing losses of £20,000 after the company set up to run the Party in the Park music festival went into liquidation after turnout failed to reach expectations The losses take up nearly all of the carnival’s reserve funds but organisers say the disaster will not affect the £17,000 they plan to dish out to organisations in the town.

Malmesbury Carnival Events Limited is going through insolvency proceedings with liquidators Begbies Traynor with debts of around £100,000 owed to 24 creditors, including the carnival, technical suppliers and a £9,000 policing bill.

Organisers hoped the three-day August bank holiday festival would attract up to 3,000 people a day but only a few hundred paid to see headliners Sandi Thom, Jon Allen and local bands.

A wrangle has now ensued between the director of Malmesbury Carnival Events Limited Chris Davey and the carnival committee which organised the event.

A statement from the committee said most of the capital used to start Malmesbury Carnival Events Ltd was injected from Malmesbury Carnival in the form of a loan of over £20,000, which in effect was all of carnival’s reserve capital.

“It remains to be seen what (if any) return there may be as the administration process can take many months,” the statement said.

It carried on: “It was of particularly deep regret to committee members that such financial loss and inconvenience has been caused to many of the business community of Malmesbury which has always been so generous and supportive of Malmesbury Carnival.”

But Mr Davey, who is himself a creditor, feels the focus should be on other creditors who have lost out. He said: “The committee was happy enough to look at the potential profit of the project, but now that the chips are down it seems to be every man for himself.

“Carnival doesn’t need to try to reclaim the money it spent as it has no effect on the other brilliant work that it does and all the pledges of charitable giving for this year have been met – put simply, that is what reserves are for. Instead, it is making itself look very greedy in front of the legitimate creditors who have lost out.

“I think the committee has a lot of soul-searching to be done over the winter.”

Mr Davey said the decision to wind up the company was not taken lightly.

“It was a very hard decision to make, but at the same time the only one which could be made,” he said.

“Many people toiled long and hard to give the event everything it needed to be a huge success but for whatever reason, like so many other events of this year, people stayed away so we just didn’t make our break-even point.”

Tags: Chris Davey, Malmesbury Carnival, Malmesbury Carnival Events Limited

Category: Festival News