Nearfest cancelled

Never been to NEARFest, but its reputation speaks for it, so this is a bit of a surprise. Plenty of prog festivals in debt-stricken Europe are doing well (closer to me, Gouveia Art Rock sold-out in days, but I'm gessing it is a much smaller venue than NEARFest). How many seats were they trying to sell and at what prices?

Kotro wrote: Never been to NEARFest, but its reputation speaks for it, so this is a bit of a surprise. Plenty of prog festivals in debt-stricken Europe are doing well (closer to me, Gouveia Art Rock sold-out in days, but I'm gessing it is a much smaller venue than NEARFest). How many seats were they trying to sell and at what prices?

Excellent point. If times are lean, you have to cut your clothes accordingly. I see that in other type of entertainment businesses over here in Europe too where we often get special deals which makes it affordable and/or the businesses scales back to just offer the core event. 

I have no idea why NEARfest was cancelled so I am speaking in general terms and as a reply to Kotro's post.  

richardh wrote: Feels like the death of prog has finally happened despite all the rumours down the years to the contrary. RIP.

Yes, as much as football being dead when a football team goes out of business. It is sad that Nearfest is cancelled this year. But the prog rock scene is still very healthy. So let's not get too much downhearted and start to shoot ourselves in the foot.

I have my personal theories why the festival is cancelled. But I will keep them to myself.   

Having attended many NEARFESTs, the problem as I see it is that it was so successful in years past with the patron program and the instant general ticket sellouts, that it became a closed community. It is safe to say that the biggest change in the faces at the festival from year to year were the musicians. I got to know many people on a first name basis. The problem with that is as soon as a segment of that community chose not to attend (for whatever reason), there was not a source of newcomers to replace them. I don't know what all of the issues were leading to the decision to cancel, but it just seemed to me that there was plenty of time to get the word out that tickets were available. If I had not seen the posting on Facebook, I would have only assumed that it sold out in one day like in past years. I think that a word-of-mouth marketing campaign starting with an e-mail to the patrons and vendors may have been enough to get tickets sold. For instance, I have friends that would go to a festival like this, but I never pushed it with them because it had been too hard to get tickets in the past. A lot of people won't sit on the phone for 3 hours waiting to talk to a box office or pay double the ticket price to be a patron, but may buy a ticket if they knew they could simply go to a web site and get a good seat. Anyway that's my 2 cents. I am probably over simplifying what was an overwhelming difficulty. I know the guys managing NEARFEST do a fine job, and I am sure it will be back next year. Prog_Traveler: if you go to Prog Day look for me - I will be with the Quantum Fantay contingent. I will likely be wearing a Paul Reed Smith (PRS) or Until Sunrise T-shirt. Quantum Fantay and Until Sunrise are touring together at the end of August into September and I will be traveling with the bands.