Reykjanesbær Deny ATP Festival Funding

Reykjanesbær City Council has turned down ATP festival organisers’ request for vital funding, throwing ATP’s future into uncertainty, reports Kjarninn.

For the past two years, Reykjanesbær’s City Council has provided ATP (All Tomorrow’s Parties) with funding and in exchange the festival, held at Ásbrú in Miðnesheiði, brought life and commerce to the otherwise quiet area.

Without this funding from the city council it is uncertain the festival will be held in the future, though it is clear organisers will move ahead with the festival already planned in 2015.

Despite the festival’s success – after all, this year ticket sales doubled compared to last year – ticket sales did not reach its intended target.

Kjarninn reports that the overall cost of the festivals exceeded 100 million ISK and that the two festivals ran at a total deficit of roughly 37-40 million ISK.

Iceland Music Export (ÚTÓN) has argued in the past that the financial benefits of music festivals in Iceland are often overlooked as they fail to look past ticket sales. Besides the cultural enrichment – which is all well and good – festival goers pump money into the local economy and foreign visitors spend cash on flights, hotel accommodation, food, museum visits, bus tours and taxis during their stay.

Some of the lineup for next year’s ATP has already been announced with indie stalwarts Belle and Sebastian headlining.

Revisit this year’s ATP festival with these beautiful portraits of the performing musicians by Matthew Eisman and crowd shots by Alísa Kalyanova.

CORRECTION NOTE

In a previous version of this article, it was stated that there was a chance the festival for 2015 would not go ahead but that was an error. The 2015 ATP festival will go on as planned but future festivals may not depending on funding going forward. We apologise for the mistake and any misunderstanding it may have caused.