Live Nation’s Mojo Concerts has brought an end to its one-day festival Stadspark Live due to high costs and a lack of growth.
The first edition of the Groningen-based festival took place in 2019 before taking a pandemic-enforced break in 2020 and 2021.
“After three editions of Stadspark Live, we regret to announce that there will not be a fourth edition of the festival,” reads a statement from Mojo.
“In recent years, we have worked with great pleasure and dedication to build a festival where we have successfully brought big and beautiful names to Groningen. After a spectacular and sold-out first edition in 2019, the tone was set, but two years of Corona then threw a spanner in the works. In the following years, we managed to organise two beautiful editions in which the program, atmosphere and audience coincided perfectly.
“Unfortunately, we have not been able to achieve the much-needed growth that we had in mind, while at the same time costs have risen significantly in all areas. This makes it not feasible to organise the festival in the way we envision Stadspark Live and we have unfortunately had to decide to pull the brake.”
“Two years of Corona then threw a spanner in the works”
The 2023 edition of Stadspark Live featured Sting, Lionel Richie, Anouk, S10 and Son Mieux.
At the end of last year, MOJO withdrew from promoting Parkpop festival, one of the largest and longest-running free-to-attend festivals in Europe.
The Dutch festival has reportedly been in financial trouble for years, with Mojo and the Parkpop organisation picking up the shortfalls “for a long time”.
“We see that the concert industry is still doing very well in 2023, but that the festivals are clearly lagging behind,” researcher Lex Kruijver of the agency Response, told Dutch outlet Het Parool earlier this year.
“In 2023 this trend will continue at the concerts, but at the festivals you see a different picture. Only the top layer of Lowlands, Paaspop and Mysteryland is still selling out nicely, although a large festival like Pinkpop is not sold out,” Kruijver explained.
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