Earthcore organisers have made a series of serious allegations against artists who cancelled their appearances at the festival last weekend.
In a new statement, festival organisers have accused multiple artists of keeping money which had allegedly been paid to them, even after they “refused” to play the event.
Earthcore claims various acts “had agreed to terms” and then ended up “keeping huge volumes of money and scapegoating our festival as the excuse of their cancellation”.
“We will be posting the international bank transfers of certain artists for all to see how much money they simply kept and refused to even play 1 show,” organisers say.
Early last week, headliners Coming Soon and Danish artist Phaxe both announced that they’d cancelled their appearances at Earthcore due to not allegedly not being paid in time.
In the days that followed, at least 12 other acts followed suit, with many citing contract or payment issues as the reason for pulling out of Earthcore. The festival eventually cancelled its Sydney leg, allegedly for unrelated reasons relating to “endless red tape”, but went ahead in Victoria.
Earthcore’s latest statement also takes aim directly at Coming Soon, accusing them of having “attacked” the festival through “a very well planned smear campaign”, which organisers claim led to more acts pulling out the festival.
“It’s noted that Coming Soon had agreed to terms and had no legal reason to announce they were cancelled or the event was cancelled,” organisers say.
The statement, which you can read in full below, also explains the struggles the festival supposedly faced in securing a venue for its Victorian event, while accusing “corrupt town planning officers” from Mitchell Shire Council of retracting a permit for the original site in Pyalong.
Organisers say that fighting to secure permits to hold the event at the alternate site in Elmore saw them face “adversity that we have not seen in 25 years of operation”.
Multiple sexual assault and drug arrests were reported at the Victorian leg of this year’s Earthcore.
Earthcore Statement (28/11/17)
Dear earthcorians
First up huge thanks, to all of you that made it to our main event. The vibe was electric from start to finish. We are proud that we pulled it off against extreme adversity. Most importantly we’d like to deeply apologise for the certain artist cancellations that were beyond our control. Much unlike the fate of similar events like Maitreya and Yemaya festival, we decided to go all out and ensure the festival proceeded regardless of never-ending government attempts to stop the event. Our issues started when the Mitchell Shire decided to retract our existing permit for our original site in Pyalong which was done so by corrupt town planning officers within the shire who floated planning law and rushed through a council revote on our permit which is unheard of under existing planning laws. We had two choices either to fight this via VCAT whilst at the same to securing our back up venue in Elmore and many others. We chose to tackle the issue via both means. Unfortunately, due to the VCAT system being overwhelmed by cases we were delayed in even getting a prelim hearing date and made the decision for the sake of the festival to proceed elsewhere. In a 12 week duration, we looked at over 29 possible sites, commenced the permit application on 6 sites and settled for the Elmore site. A huge effort was then undertaken by lawyers, planning consultants and others to force our POPE permit through many weeks before the event commenced. It’s noted that most if not all events of this nature struggle to get a POPE permit till the week of their events let alone 8 weeks before event commencement and due to an over the top government level initiative have been targeted to try and stop these festivals from happening. This is an attack on an entire youth culture movement and will not stop with event cancellations like Yemaya and Maitreya. At the time of writing, no advertised “doof” and “lifestyle” related festival in Victoria has a POPE permit locked down. We once again reiterate the effort we put in to get our event over the line against adversity that we have not seen in 25 years of operation. After all this, we then were attacked by a very well planned smear campaign by international artist Coming Soon who advertised that our event was cancelled using our own festival flyer with the words cancelled scrawled across it. It’s noted that Coming Soon had agreed to terms and had no legal reason to announce they were cancelled or the event was cancelled. This incredible advertised campaign by Coming Soon then lead to a series of acts simply cancelling their performances and keeping huge volumes of money and scapegoating our festival as the excuse of their cancellation. We will be posting the international bank transfers of certain artists for all to see how much money they simply kept and refused to even play 1 show. We would like to thank many artists and staff that did do the right thing and stuck with us and supported our show against incredibe [sic] odds. We would also like to thank our supporters that made eathcore [sic] 2017 magical. We are now in the process of regrouping our organisation an coming out firing for our 25th anniversary show in 2018. As they say the show goes and will go on. Thank you. EC HQ
