From the Lord of the Flies vibe at Fyre, to the meltdowns at Hope & Glory and Y Not, music festivals feel more precarious than ever. Are the failures down to ‘acts of God’, or just bad leadership?

Last weekend, punters turned up to Hope & Glory in Liverpool expecting a “wonderful boutique festival” that would be “stylish yet subversive – think Charles Darwin meets Tim Burton”. At least, that’s what the advert promised.

It wasn’t too wrong. There was definitely a sense of survival of the fittest for event-goers trying to navigate queues and the lack of facilities, mixed with nightmarish Burtonian unease. But there wasn’t actually a festival, so to speak. The first day was marred by overcrowding and hours of delays, and by Sunday morning the whole event had been shut down, with nothing more than printed-out posters and a tweet reading “no festival today”. Rather than being all about the headliners, it was all about the headlines that followed.

Back in April, when the flaccid cheese sandwiches, emergency shelters and general Lord of the Flies atmosphere of the doomed Fyre festival were beamed out on social media, it felt a long way from home. After all, this was on the remote island of Exuma in the Bahamas, and with tickets selling for up to a quarter of a million dollars, it attracted a more exclusive crowd.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Billy McFarland, organiser of Fyre festival. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

Spain’s Tomorrowland faced a fire that led to the evacuation of over 22,000 people. Sweden’s Into the Factory, meanwhile, was deemed a safety risk before it even began – this was just weeks after the same organisers’ Into the Valley festival was beset with poor planning, needing volunteers to take on security tasks, and leaving ravers nowhere to shelter from thunderstorms.

Hope & Glory is not the only festival to go diabolically wrong in the UK. Safe as Milk was cancelled earlier in the year due to poor ticket sales, following All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP) in the demise of holiday-camp festivals. Only a week ago, Derbyshire’s Y Not festival was cancelled a day early, with people being marooned in car parks, and performers having to edit or cancel performances thanks to the extreme weather. Perhaps “acts of God” can’t be prevented, but they can be prepared for, and the lack of hay or woodchip led to a site that made Glastonbury look like Centre Court.

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One of the immediate questions, asked by many of the punters put out of pocket, was whether overcapacity was a factor. Y Not Festival has gone from 8,000 to 25,000 capacity in just three years, which could explain the lack of staff and the angry Facebook comments citing “greed” as the main issue.

When smaller festivals become popular, there is always going to be the economic incentive to expand. Michael Baker, events co-ordinator of the UK festival awards and editor of Festival Insights, sees these decisions as “for the most part not taken lightly. Obviously as capacity increases, revenue increases. But increased capacity also leads to increased responsibility and risk”. There’s a decent amount of red tape to navigate, which allows for increased audience numbers while forcing organisers to improve safety measures. When adverse weather or natural disasters do happen, however, a newly increased capacity is likely to lead to organisational disasters too.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pigeon Detectives perform at Hope & Glory festival before it was shut down. Photograph: Jason Sheldon/REX/Shutterstock

Between the councils, organisers, security and ticket companies, it’s often hard to know who was actually at fault, and although it might seem reductive to see individuals to blame for large-scale disasters like Hope & Glory, it might be not too far from the truth.

John McClure from indie band Reverend and the Makers lambasted “gangsters … flood[ing] the industry, imagining themselves as latter-day Michael Eavis types” on Twitter this week, and poor decisions often derive from poor leadership. Hope & Glory’s organiser Lee O’Hanlon has a history of problems around loss-making gigs with Tom Jones and the Jacksons, and the failed Down to the Woods festival. Baker tells me part of the problem with Fyre festival was probably the fact that it was run by tech entrepreneurs rather than anyone with an events background.

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If these individuals are reluctant to take the blame, a farcical finger-pointing charade ensues. O’Hanlon’s response identified a number of problems, but alienated himself from all of them. In a 2,000 word statement, the council, a man called Richard Agar, a woman called Angie Redhead, a few alcohol thieves and a pint of milk that went off were all identified as problems; he has prompted further anger by revealing that profits, previously promised to victims of the Manchester arena bombing, won’t be donated because “there are no profits”.

Ja Rule similarly made the blame-shifting response of ‘I truly apologize as this is NOT MY FAULT’ after the failure of Fyre. As Baker put it, the worst thing a festival organiser can do is “blame absolutely everyone else, including some milk”. Y Not were at least exemplary in their response, and gave a generous 50% of event-goers’ money back.

kaylaa (@kaylaloria) Summing up YNOT in a pic pic.twitter.com/ep2oR8rasm

More important than the physical damage caused to sites, however, is punters’ trust being broken. As a darkly funny photo of Y Not’s giant stone letters – with the Y fallen over – illustrated, these disasters will lead to a reluctance to attend, and fear about which festival could fall next.

Baker is optimistic, however. For every festival that faces problems, there are “dozens and dozens” running smoothly. He doesn’t see a trend emerging: “The long-running nature of so many great festivals in the UK is testament to the professionalism of the system,” he says. The fact that people won’t forget the nightmares that have taken place puts pressure on organisers to do better. Baker’s main bit of advice? “Open communication before, during and after the event is paramount, and ensure there are technological solutions to mitigate the threat of weather.” And never, ever, claim that your festival was shut down by a single pint of milk.