The recent Bel-AOR festival in Belfast looked to be a pretty cool lineup, some notable bands throughout the weekend and a tribute band night on the Thursday.
However, the ticket price was astoundingly high, with weekend passes for almost £160 and day tickets running over £70, the turnout was predictably abysmal. Early bands played to less than a dozen people, and latter bands didn't fare much better.
In the run up to the event, bands like Sister's Doll were added, flying themselves in from Australia, and Bobby Dazzle, buying their own flights from England, with the promise that all expenses and fees would be repaid when "ticket partners" released the money.
This was ostensibly an SD Entertainment event, with Ciaran Campbell being the sole organiser, however he created a company specifically for the festival.
The festival was an unmitigated disaster, the ticket price putting almost everyone off from attending, with crowd numbers barely reaching triple figures, which in the Mandela Hall, was a stark thing to see.
After the event, Campbell immediately folded the Bel-AOR company, and bands have been left in the lurch, out huge amounts of money for unpaid flights and reneged fees. SD Entertainment dodged the bullet there.
Scopyons and Bobby Dazzle were the first ones to announce that they were unpaid, with a lot more bands also in the same predicament.
It's not the first time Ciaran Campbell has been accused of dirty tricks, but this one is particularly insidious considering how bands were added so late in the day, knowing all the while that the event had hugely undersold and fees would be unlikely to be paid, let alone flights and other costs. Scopyons being told that they had to buy a festival ticket each themselves was unreal. Reading Sian's thread from Bobby Dazzle is an eye opener too, and worth reading.
However, the ticket price was astoundingly high, with weekend passes for almost £160 and day tickets running over £70, the turnout was predictably abysmal. Early bands played to less than a dozen people, and latter bands didn't fare much better.
In the run up to the event, bands like Sister's Doll were added, flying themselves in from Australia, and Bobby Dazzle, buying their own flights from England, with the promise that all expenses and fees would be repaid when "ticket partners" released the money.
This was ostensibly an SD Entertainment event, with Ciaran Campbell being the sole organiser, however he created a company specifically for the festival.
The festival was an unmitigated disaster, the ticket price putting almost everyone off from attending, with crowd numbers barely reaching triple figures, which in the Mandela Hall, was a stark thing to see.
After the event, Campbell immediately folded the Bel-AOR company, and bands have been left in the lurch, out huge amounts of money for unpaid flights and reneged fees. SD Entertainment dodged the bullet there.
Scopyons and Bobby Dazzle were the first ones to announce that they were unpaid, with a lot more bands also in the same predicament.
It's not the first time Ciaran Campbell has been accused of dirty tricks, but this one is particularly insidious considering how bands were added so late in the day, knowing all the while that the event had hugely undersold and fees would be unlikely to be paid, let alone flights and other costs. Scopyons being told that they had to buy a festival ticket each themselves was unreal. Reading Sian's thread from Bobby Dazzle is an eye opener too, and worth reading.