Beachdowners set Anne Robinson on organisers

The still-not-forthcoming refunds for those who bought tickets for Beachdown last year has led to growing disgruntlement.

Now, the ticket holders are getting desperate:

Angry customers are now writing to BBC's Watchdog in the hope that an investigation will hold the organisers accountable and reveal where their money has gone.

A FaceBook group called Beachdown Letdown has 179 infuriated members.

One, Hannah Woodruff, last week called on them to follow her lead and write to the TV programme, which several agreed to do.

There seems to be an acceptance that there's no money to be had - according to The Argus, the approach is more educational:

Tim Knight, who is owed £184, wrote to Watchdog saying: “Viewers of Watchdog who fancy attending a music festival need to be aware of the risks they run in buying tickets.

“Watchdog could do a great public service by getting to grips the organisers of Beachdown 2009 who have left many people feeling cheated.”

To be honest, it's not just people buying tickets for festivals, is it? If you buy tickets for anything, there's a chance that Michael Jackson might die or the aircrew go on strike or the snow makes it impossible, and you're betting that the organisers have a plan to refund you if things go wrong.

In fact, isn't running a story on Watchdog suggesting that people think twice before buying tickets for smaller events going to depress an already-difficult market and possibly wind up with more festivals going down, making the problem worse?

Beachdown drags promoter down

The collapse of the Beachdown Festival at the end of summer is now wrecking the lives of the promoters - Joe Pidgeon is struggling to cope with the debts generated by the flop and has put his house on the market, reports The Argus:

He said that although plans were falling into place to repay all ticket holders, some of whom paid hundreds of pounds for luxury tents, he was still “working tirelessly” to rectify the situation.

After almost a month the Beachdown directors say they are making progress on repaying those people who bought tickets from local vendors after admitting it was up to the festival to reimburse the customers.

Not, of course, the best time to be selling your house. It's a long, unhappy ending for everyone.

Festival axed: Beachdown goes down

Brighton's Beachdown Festival has been pulled.

Organisers have statemented:

“It is with immense personal regret that the Directors of Beachdown Festival have been advised that they must announce that due to slower than forecast ticket-sales and lack of support at a critical time from our bank and certain suppliers that despite being so so close to being able to deliver Beachdown Festival we are unable to do so.

“Very simply we were unable to meet the demands that the current economic climate put against us and at the eleventh hour despite having most of the infrastructure in place we have been forced to cancel the event.

“We wish to say at this time how desperately sorry we are to all those who have bought tickets or were participating in the event and to say that we all here are personally shattered expecially [sic] after eleven months of battling against the recession to try and put this event on and coming so close.

“We also wish to advise everyone that we explored every possible avenue to finance the event including re-mortgaging our houses to combat the unwillingness of banks to support us.

“We will do everything in our power to give the best information that we can via the web-site and via email but we ask that people understand that we will also be inundated with enquiries but we will endeavour to communicate to everyone as best we can.

“We ask all ticket-holders to get information from the outlet that you purchased the ticket from in the first instance and once again we will do everything we can to get as much information as we can to everyone as quickly as we can.”

Beachdown, which was due to feature Grace Jones and the Super Furry Animals was due to have taken place at Devils Dyke.