Per an announcement made via the festival’s Facebook earlier today, August 19th, the inaugural ‘Kentucky Irate Festival‘ has officially been cancelled. The planned three-day event imploded over the past week amid booking disputes with a number of the local acts involved, troubling allegations and more.
Among the booking issues brought up by bands were the enforcement of ticket selling expectations to be met by local artists and radius clauses—something artists originally involved with the festival claimed weren’t a “mandatory expectation” upon originally agreeing to play the fest.
The festival’s founder Joseph Borland would go on to state that the confusion about the ticket sales expectations came about as a result of a miscommunication with his then partner in the festival Tracy Cook, of Until The Dead Walk fame.
However, an apparent threat made to a member of Wake Up In Tsunami about their employment at a business owned by another one of the festival’s co-founders incensed even more bands. It is said that the threat was issued after Wake Up In Tsunami began disparaging the festival online. You can catch up on all of that here.
Meanwhile, Sero\\tonin pulled out of the festival after learning that Until The Dead Walk vocalist Ren Young aka (Ren AFK) was an investor in the event. Sero\\tonin vocalist Melissa George then publicly came forward with this rape allegation against Young, with several other women following suit with similar allegations (see here, here, here and here). Amid this, former Until The Dead Walk member Dakota Myers, issued a statement, backing up the allegation offered by George, with whom he is in a relationship.
The fallout was swift, as Until The Dead Walk were dropped from the festival, while the band were ejected from their then ongoing tour with Filth, My Own Will and more. Tracy Cook also stepped down from the outfit, issuing a statement in support of one of the alleged victims of Young. The group’s guitarist Will Cody and drummer Sean Marlow both announced their indefinite hiatus from the outfit as well.
Now faced with allegations from reportedly as many as 11 women, Ren, maintains that he is innocent and a victim of “a calculated/organized attack”. In his defense, he recently issued this statement on the matter. While the ‘Kentucky Irate Festival‘ went on to distance itself from Young, another wave of artists exited the festival.
Yesterday, August 18th saw the Louisville, KY venue that was set to host the festival, the MG Prime Entertainment Complex, announce the festival’s cancellation. While Borland would go on to issue a statement of his own, he didn’t specifically express the cancellation within it.
Instead, he issued another statement last night, before ultimately announcing the festival’s cancellation today, August 19th. By the time the festival was officially cancelled, roughly 40 bands—if not more—had left the bill.
The first statement issued last night by Borland, found him venting against those who apparently took it upon themselves to threaten the owners of the venue, it reads as follows:
“What you are failing to realize is that, by trying to sabotage us, you are really just hurting your local business owners. We, as an LLC, make the decisions on this festival, nobody else.
The venue that you have decided to threaten with life threatening violence is a locally owned business in your town who had nothing to do with us, they simply rented us the venue. The people you have threatened with physical violence for simply working on an opportunity for their businesses, are local small business owners in your town and fans of the music. Our security team considers this a ‘high risk’ event now because our team has gotten NUMEROUS death threats, have gotten racial slurs, and have been made to feel unsafe.
You are destroying financial opportunities for your town and making those in your town afraid for their safety. All these conversations you all have seen are only a small portion of the truth. People want to make it about their opinions, rather than accepting a brand new festival trying to create something special.
Yes, they have made a statement that they will not be hosting the show anymore. This is truly so sad, you guys don’t see what you’re doing to your own town. We get it, it’s cool to jump on the hate bandwagon but enough is enough. If you want a refund, great, we’ll get you one, the moment we cancel this event officially and get the approval from our ticketing provider. Being a jerk in our inbox about refunds isn’t going to get you paid faster. We will keep you all updated as much as we can.”
A separate statement made by Borland this morning officially confirmed the cancellation of the festival, it reads as follows:
“Yesterday we had fully intended to keep this festival going, tickets are still selling quickly despite the circumstances, and we have many bands still ready and excited to play.
As of this morning, Friday August 19, 2022, KENTUCKY Irate Festival is officially cancelled.
! Your full refunds will be given and processed back to your point of purchase within 30 business day. You don’t need to message us or inbox us, this will happen automatically !
We tried our hardest to get the most talented and influential bands in metal to come together and create an event that the locals and nationals could be united and play together for the fans. Thank you to the bands who stuck it out with us, seeing the bigger picture and wanting to be there.
We have made our apologies and stand by them. Thank you to everyone who has put time, effort, and funding into this. We wish you all the best moving forward.”
