By Liz Tracy
This morning, London-based festival promotions company All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP) announced on Facebook that it was ending all its future live events. This marks a sad, though not abrupt ending to a long history of avant-garde musical gatherings that often experimented with unusual venues and lineups.
Launched in 1999 with a Belle and Sebastian-curated fest in East Sussex, ATP had since expanded its now late sonic empire around the globe. Lineups continued to be pieced together by great, mostly musical talents, including Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum, director Jim Jarmusch, Pavement, The Breeders, Shellac, Sonic Youth, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and dozens more. Tom Tom founder Mindy Abovitz described her wild ATP experience in Prestatyn, North Wales, at a fest hosted by comedian Stewart Lee with Sun Ra Arkestra and Roky Erickson, the Fall, and John Cale as “sleep away camp for the grungy music loving adult.”
There were signs that this was the end of days for the company. In 2014, ATP’s Jabberwocky Festival was cancelled days in advance, and this April, a fest curated by Drive Like Jeru was also cancelled.
The goodbye note shown below is simple. It states that funding pulled from an Icelandic concert resulted in ATP’s demise. It will be ending all live upcoming events, though other promoters will pick up the planned UK shows.
It is with deep sadness we are announcing that ATP Festivals and live promotions are closing down. After months of speculation, our funding for Iceland has been pulled and we are no longer able to continue so will be closing down the entire live side of ATP festivals and live promotions with immediate effect and going into administration.
ATP Iceland festival is no longer happening, but all our other UK shows will have new promoters appointed and tickets transferred (all purchased tickets remain valid with the new promoter). We will post details of the administrators and what to do for festival ticket refunds over the next week.
We are very sorry we could not make this work and have tried to survive throughout all our recent losses but we are no longer able to trade and have to accept we cannot go on.
Thank you to all our loyal customers who have supported us and incredible artists who have performed or curated for us over the years and made ATP so special while it lasted.