When the coronavirus pandemic began to rise in numbers and officials began to ban gatherings, festival goer's throughout the country knew what was coming. Festivals that were once the highlight of the summer month began announcing their cancellations.
Along with those announcements came one from a local festival: Lightning in a Bottle.
The LIB festival announced in March the 2020 event would not be held this year due to the coronavirus. As fans of the festival were disappointed, what came as a bigger shock was when LIB officials announced they would not be issuing refunds for tickets.
Now officials have explained further why they initially said they could not offer refunds and what they are doing now to better the situation.
"When it became clear to us that the event was going to be canceled, we were mid-production and had spent nearly all of the ticket money on LIB," officials said. "We faced a heartbreaking truth: we do not have enough money to issue full refunds to all of you. We therefore announced that there would be no refunds."
Officials said that most of the money the festival brings in in ticket sales barely covers the cost of putting on the festival. They said they only see a profit after the festival is over with sales from the event. But now they working to offer refunds to some ticket buyers.
"We have worked together with the music agents and artists, and are thankful to announce that a vast majority of the artists, despite having incurred their own non-refundable expenses in planning for their LIB performances, are returning their deposits in an effort to help us in this time of crisis," said officials. "However, we need you to understand the situation, and that is if the majority of our community request refunds, it may mean the end of Do LaB because the pool will be far too small to refund everyone, and that debt will be crushing."
Those wishing to joining to refund pool can do so here. If you'd wish to hold onto your ticket for a later festival, you can do so here.
Those who wish to support LIB in its efforts at this time can do so here.
