Shrewsbury Fields Forever: Hundreds left out of pocket as music festival cancelled

The festival, which was due to take place in five weeks time, has now been cancelled and music lovers are being urged to contact their credit or debit card companies to obtain a refund on tickets.

Dene Edwards from Forever Invasion Ltd, which is the trading name of the company behind Shrewsbury Fields Forever Festival and Shrewsbury International Comic Art Festival, has been in talks with Birmingham-based Irwin Insolvency.

It is understood that Forever Invasion Ltd has hundreds of creditors, including ticket holders, to whom it owes thousands of pounds.

Acts on the original bill for July had included the Happy Mondays and Dizzee Rascal.

Mr Edwards said: "Following the decision of Shrewsbury Town Council to 'pull' the use of the Quarry Park Facilities as the venue for this year's Shrewsbury Fields Forever Festival I regret to advise that this year's festival, in the absence of a viable venue, has been required to be cancelled.

"As usual the festival went through the safety advisory group process to confirm operational and safety provision, and as such the event was set to go ahead. I have requested more detail from the town council on the reasons for their decision.

"I have instructed Irwin Insolvency to assist with the formal process of putting the company into creditors' voluntary liquidation."

Shrewsbury Fields Forever was initially due to be held in July in the Quarry. But it was postponed and was rescheduled for September.

Last week members of Shrewsbury Town Council decided that, as they had not received a number of assurances they had requested from Mr Edwards, they would withdraw permission for it to be staged in the Quarry.

Despite losing its venue, Mr Edwards said in a statement on Monday: "We are running around trying to fix this. There will be many of you loyal folk who have already purchased tickets and moved over to the September date, hopefully we will fix this and all will be dandy.

Gerald Irwin, director of Irwin Insolvency, said: "The event has been cancelled and the company that organised it has instructed us to put the company into liquidation.

"We are going to write to the creditors and ticket holders informing them of this development. We would urge anyone who has bought a ticket using a credit or debit card to contact these organisations with a view to obtaining a refund. We understand there are between 700 and 800 creditors."

Anyone who is owed money by Forever Invasions Ltd trading as Shrewsbury Fields Forever Festival and Shrewsbury International Comic Art Festival should contact the liquidators on 0121 321 1700.