Hundreds of revellers bound for an underground music festival in the East Neuk have been left disappointed after organisers were forced to pull the plug on the event just 48 hours beforehand.
Up to 500 people were expected to attend the three-day Fallout Festival being held inside Scotland’s Secret Bunker at Troywood, north of Anstruther this weekend.
But as final preparations got under way this week, the festival was hit by spiralling security costs which proved a step too far for the group of four friends running the event on a tight budget.
Organiser Jamie Pearson of Cupar says red tape had a part to play in the unfortunate development but admits their inexperience in event management may also have been to blame.
“This has been a long time in the planning and it has been extremely difficult to do this with Fife Council.
“Dundee City Council has an extensive document which has a list of contacts for each department and step by step instructions.
“Fife Council has nothing like that and it really needs to if it wants to encourage more events in the area,” said Mr Pearson.
With around 200 tickets sold at a price of £59 each, a notice was placed on the networking site Facebook to announce the cancellation.
The process of refunding tickets is already under way.
There was speculation that an email from an unnamed source had been sent to Fife police claiming the event was going to attract more than the agreed number of festival goers and suggested a greater risk in drug use.
It was alleged that police officials contacted the venue to demand higher security levels, however, this has been denied by the force who said they met festival officials on Wednesday to give the all clear and did not even receive an email.
Despite the explanation a freedom of information request has been lodged with police by the organisers to find out if the correspondence exists.
Despite the last-minute cancellation there are already plans to hold the Fallout Festival next year.
Picture used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user Brian Forbes.