Festival in Warrington slammed as 'complete flop' after traders lose hundreds

PEOPLE have slammed a festival in Warrington as a ‘complete flop’ after traders claimed they lost hundreds of pounds.

Dark Faery Solstice Festival, an event for those who enjoy myths, fantasy and magic, took place in Rixton last week.

The website states it was hosted by Tink who has successfully run The Legendary Faery Festival in Llangollen for 11 years.

The Llangollen event is known to be very successful and attracts thousands of attendees each year.

However, Warrington’s version, which had options for people to camp at, proved to be much different for all of the wrong reasons.

It is understood that prices on the day were £25 for adults, or £15 for children, which people have described as ‘sickening’.

Traders have shared their ‘disgust’ and said they feel ‘cheated’ following the event, which they say was promised to be ‘huge’ with a capacity of up to 1,500 visitors over the three days.

But stall holders say there was just over 100 visitors across the whole weekend.

They say there was not enough advertising for the event and that they were not given a heads up about the fact that only 120 tickets had been sold prior to the festival.

Besides this, festivalgoers have slammed the event for its ‘terrible, uneven rutted field, its ‘horrendous toilet facilities’, the lack of food choices and the ‘extortionate’ and ‘sickening’ gate prices.

They also say there was ‘nothing to do’ there.

The disappointment has resulted in an uproar on the Dark Faery Solstice Festival’s Facebook page.

One person said: “As an event organiser myself, I know how extremely hard it is in the current climate to get the punters to commit in advance and that it is always terrifying when numbers are low, however, to have only sold 120 tickets in advance for a weekend festival, and not to let traders know is definitely not on.

“I genuinely feel for all involved, it’s not nice when something is a complete flop, but as event organisers it is your responsibility to be open and transparent and to communicate with the traders.”

(Image: Supplied)

Another said: “En masse we've paid a lot of money to trade, we've fulfilled our side of the contract and whilst I obviously cannot speak for all of my fellow traders, I get the feeling that they might agree with me when I say, I feel that you as the organiser have not upheld your side of it.”

Another trader, who said stall holders paid hundreds of pounds for their pitches, wrote to the Warrington Guardian to share their disappointment at the festival.

This person said that the organiser sent emails about ‘amazing ticket sales’ to the traders prior to the event.

They said how by just walking around the field, it was clear to see how ‘fed up’ stallholders were, with 30 per cent starting to leave on Saturday.

Following the heavy criticism, the organiser put out a statement on the Dark Faery Solstice Festival Facebook page.

Tink said how she is sorry for the ‘genuine, upset traders’ but that she feels she has been the victim of a ‘hate campaign’.

The Facebook post reads: “I am so very sorry you lost money.

“I have lost thousands.

“I am not saying this for sympathy, but we all worked hard to make this the very best and I firmly believe we were all betrayed by a small faction of haters.”

The organiser also apologised for the lack of footfall, but said that 120 tickets had been sold online for the festival which she said ‘is good for an untried event’.

“I apologise for the lack of footfall,” the Facebook post continues.

“We were allowed 500 visitors on that field per day, so 1500 over the weekend.

“120 tickets sold online, which is good for an untried event.

“For example, the Llangollen Faery Festival only sells around 300 tickets online and thousands attend, so as a percentage, sales for the Dark Faery were almost 50 per cent of the Llangollen event and its many visitors.

“It should have been a breeze to attract the further 380 to make it up to 500, If anything, I was worried we would be over capacity.”

However, despite of all the criticism, there was some positive feedback for the event.

One attendee said how they had a ‘fantastic time’ and although they did feel bad for the traders with the footfall being so low, the ‘vibe was wonderful’.

They commented on the Facebook page: “We really thought it was a lovely event and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and got some awesome wears as well from the lovely traders.”

Another person said: “We enjoyed ourselves, the bands were amazing, very much our style, we met some lovely people who visited our stand and thankyou to those that took home some of our art.

“Yes, footfall wasn’t great, but our stand is very niche so we don’t expect the big sales.

“We will be trading again next time because I think this festival has real potential to grow into something special.”