London's Jabberwocky Festival Axed Due To Poor Ticket Sales

The inaugural Jabberwocky Festival in London has been cancelled just days before its debut due to poor ticket sales.

The music event was slated to take place this weekend (15-16Aug14) at the ExCeL Centre, and feature headlining sets from James Blake and Neutral Milk Hotel, but 72 hours before it was due to kick off, organisers announced its cancellation.

Bosses from concert promoter Atp released a statement to NME.com on Tuesday (12Aug14), which reads, "It is with deep sadness that we inform everyone that... Atp is being forced into cancelling this weekend's Jabberwocky Festival.

"We have put everything into promoting Jabberwocky, and despite healthy ticket sales; all our efforts could not take those sales to the point that we needed to finally stage the event. Over the past month and all the way up until this moment we have tried every possible course of action to follow through in delivering Jabberwocky to you, but the position we unfortunately find ourselves in, as a result of a succession of events that have lost money in an increasingly aggressive festival market, means we are no longer able to do so.

"In the past, Atp has weathered losses such as this and gone on with the show, taking huge direct financial blows as an independent company. But on this occasion, if we had gone ahead with an event of this scale and the associated high-production costs, it would 100 per cent have been the end of Atp. We do not take this decision lightly and it was the hardest we've ever had to make.

"We apologise to all the people we have let down, from fans to the bands, the venue and all the suppliers. We have tried everything in our power to save this event and continue, but the losses we have recently incurred have unfortunately been too much for a company of our size to bear."

Refunds will be available to all concertgoers who have purchased passes to the festival.