Nearly half of all tickets for Kent’s biggest music festival of the summer have been given away free with a flimsy celebrity-backed raincoat worth just £10.
Organisers behind the star-studded Hop Farm event in Paddock Wood next weekend stunned music fans earlier this week when the unbelievable offer of a pair of complimentary weekend passes, worth £250, was tacked onto sales of blue and grey designer Splashmacs on a budget fashion website.
But they have denied claims the event was selling poorly – despite some fans who paid full price for their tickets reacting furiously to news of the offer.
The 20,000-capacity event takes place with a big-hitting line-up including the likes of Paul Weller, The Fratellis, Editors and Echo and the Bunnymen.
A remarkable 6,000 weekend tickets – which normally sell for £125 each – have been promised to buyers who paid for a colourful bad weather cover worth less than a tenth of the ticket’s value.
The MandMDirect site was flooded with so many customers on Tuesday trying to get their hands on the Splashmac, it sold out and switched the ticket offer to a luminous towel, worth £9.77.
A few hours later and 1,000 had gone, meaning another 2,000 people could snap-up Hop Farm passes.
That’s a total of 8,000 tickets given away as part of the promotion – or £1 million’s worth of potential sales.
The website reported that the closing date to claim tickets was June 29. All those taking advantage of the offer had to do was pay £16 for a camping permit.
Hop Farm Festival chiefs who pride themselves on their “no sponsors, no branding” approach have denied the extraordinary offer was merely a stunt to get rid of unwanted tickets.
They claim the giveaway was a stroke of generosity by festival boss and famous promoter Vince Power and a drive to raise money for a good cause – but didn’t prove the Hop Farm Festival was a flop which hard-up punters didn’t want to attend.
All funds raised from the sale of 3,000 £9.99 Splashmacs and 1,000 towels will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust charity.
Festival spokesman Ian Roberts said: “Vince Power is just an incredibly generous man. He has decided to give away tickets with every purchase of a Splashmac.
“I don’t think anyone will have a problem giving money to a reputable and worthy cause. Certainly we live in difficult times and music festivals are in a difficult position.
“But we are sure the Hop Farm Festival is an incredibly strong event with a fantastic line-up that people in Kent will really enjoy.
“A great weekend of top bands and entertainment is in store.”
A customer service worker for the MandMDirect website admitted: “We’ve been inundated with calls about the Splashmac, it’s an unbelievable offer.
“Some people have bought two or three of them, meaning they could have six tickets for the Hop Farm.”
Some fans who have already paid for tickets are furious.
Emily Dorman, 23, from Maidstone, said she had struggled to raise the cash to buy a pair of tickets and couldn’t believe the Splashmac offer.
She added: “I scrimped and saved to get these tickets and then I hear they’re being dished out with a raincoat. It’s not fair, to be honest. I just hope the festival is as good as they say it’s going to be.”
MandMDirect spokesman Ed Green told Kent on Saturday: “The Splashmacs have been designed and modelled by very famous people. We teamed up with the Hop Farm Festival to give people a brilliant chance to see some fantastic bands and raise money for charity at the same time.
“The Splashmacs sold out very very quickly, the pick-up has been phenomenal. There were only 3,000 of them. But we have ordered more to be delivered.
“We temporarily switched the project to the towels and all 1,000 sold out.”
Vince Power has stated he intends the Hop Farm Festival to be a long-term project and one which would put Kent “on the map”.
POSTED: 27/06/2009 13:00:00
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