LMG Statement on Together Festival 2014

Together Festival 2014 was a festival that LMG was brought into as a managing partner. It should be mentioned that it was never LMG’s concept and LMG only had a 20% stake in the event. We met our main partner who pitched the concept to us and we helped to fulfil his dream. All partners were contracted to fund their own arena and in return would receive 10% of the Nett profits from the festival should it make one. LMG did not write up these contracts and were never responsible for them. Had we met our initial budgeted sales target of 5,000 then the festival would have clearly made all partners money back with a good profit for all involved. Had we met the revised budgeted sales target of 4,000, again we would have covered all investment amounts including our own, however even this revised target was not met with 500 of the final figure being free guests.

From day one of planning the festival we made it clear to all partners that we weren’t promoters. We were very clear on our responsibilities, those being clearly set out; acquisition of the site, application for and granting the Licence, handling of all Safety Advisory Group meetings and requirements and delivery of the compliant event on the day. We made it clear we would deliver the festival but selling tickets and getting people to the festival would be in the hands of the promoters. The festival had a maximum capacity of 5000 people. The main brand made promises to sell at least 2500 tickets alone along with assurances to support this from our main partner, which left the smaller brands only having to cover 500 tickets sold each. Had these numbers been met the festival would have made a clear profit and hit the required targets we had budgeted for. This did not happen and the final headcount as confirmed by security and submitted to the Authorities (required by law) was 3032 through the gates which also included free guests. The free guest total of 500 was confirmed to us in writing from our main partner.

The costs of producing the festival came in way over budget for several reasons. Firstly extra arenas were added against our advice thus raising the costs of marquees, staff, security and lighting etc. Secondly the camping option was added. The interest in camping was far lower than any revenue received from adding this feature and therefore did not outweigh the significant costs of offering this facility, LMG again did advise against this initially.

We only issued physical tickets to our main partner who was solely responsible for the distribution of these tickets under a distribution agreement which clearly stated that all unsold ticket must be returned after the event for auditing purposes. £55,000 worth of tickets were distributed to this partner and we only ever received revenue back to the amount of £29,813. Although we are not making accusations, we have never received back any of the unsold ticket books despite numerous requests for them as per the written agreement. After reading the personal statement from this partner, he clearly tried to shift the spotlight from himself and on to LMG but what he actually did was raise questions over the paper ticket sales and the reasons behind the failure to return the unsold books. We also discovered that physical ticket revenue was used to cover individual expenses which was never authorised. Considering our main partner confirms that LMG had full control over accounting, we are still confused as to why financial decisions were made by our main partner to withhold ticket revenue funds for expenses. This is against the law and is classed as theft.

We hold our hands up and apologise deeply to all partners for the fact that the final accounts have taken far longer to produce than we ever planned but we did make it clear to all partners that these were delayed due to the non return of tickets from our main partner and the influx of invoices outlining costs we were not aware of and had not budgeted for. We have been extremely diligent in showing that every penny spent and received by LMG has been accounted for as all of our revenue was received from external independent operators such as the ticket agents and bar operator. Once seen we believe that all partners will realise that LMG is not the villain of this story but rather just another partner who lost a great deal of money on this enterprise.

LMG is an experienced and highly reputable operator who has worked with some of the biggest names and brands in this industry for well over a decade. Our honesty, integrity and professionalism has never before been questioned and hopefully never will be again. We strongly regret ever getting involved in this enterprise and will take the necessary steps to try to ensure that our brand is never again soiled by such an inexperienced partners actions. LMG has lost a significant level of investment in this festival as well as time and effort, something we have not been recognised or thanked for. The investment we lost has also had a detrimental effect on our other businesses and as a result has caused us great financial problems.