Canadian music festival canceled – major industry player calls it ‘fraud’

Canada’s Pemberton festival scheduled for later this year and recently canceled was called out my WME’s (William Morris Endeavor) head of music Marc Geiger for canceling their festival and not offering a refund to fans who had bought tickets. In an interview in Billboard, Geiger stated:

“I want each of them to know ‘I coming after you personally. We’re going to pursue all of these people to the full extent of the law. They should not be able to run away from this. You can’t do this much damage to the festival ecosystem and think you can get away with it.”

“This is fraud, pure and simple,” Geiger told Billboard. He compared Pemberton to the infamous Fyre Festival that crashed and burned just a few weeks ago. “The only difference between Pemberton and Fyre is that Pemberton sold their event with trees instead of supermodels.”

“This is just gross to me,” Geiger said. “These guys are declaring bankruptcy, but none of them are actually bankrupt. Their shell company is bankrupt. And now they want fans to pay the price. That’s not bankruptcy. That’s fraud.”

Headliners were to include Muse, Chance the Rapper, Major Lazer, Tegan and Sarah, Haim, A Tribe Called Quset, Big Sean and more.