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Foto: Lene J. Løkkhaug

Sakset: «It is with our deepest regret we have to inform you that Trondheim Metal Fest 2016 is cancelled. The organizing company (Trondheim Metal Fest AS) have gone bankrupt and will not be able to go through with this year´s festival, which was scheduled to take place October 6.-8th.

I have dedicated 7 years of my life for this festival, starting out with my bare hands and a lot of good friends. So it´s only fair to say that we have dedicated 7 years of our lives, in an attempt to give Trondheim the proper metal festival that our city deserved. We are the third largest city in Norway and we didn´t have our own rock/metal festival. (Not that still existed anyways) And we never took a dime of the profit either, it all went to the next year´s edition and the next. What drove us was the sheer passion for the music, and the passion for giving all the great local bands a stage to perform on, and an audience to play for.

For the last 4 weeks we´ve been working tirelessly to find a solution that would avoid this bankruptcy from happening, but with no successful result. This is extra painful for us, knowing that last year´s festival was the most successful edition we´ve ever had, with a record attendance and many new and exciting activities during the festival weekend.

2014 was a major shift in the festival design direction, going from one stage at Verkstedhallen to three stages at Clarion/Rockheim, and obviously a huge investment. Although we consider the festival execution to be a success, ticket sales did not reach our estimations. This took a harder financial toll on the company than we had expected and severely restricted our options for 2015.

Following a much tighter economy in 2015 we saw a couple of critical sponsors back out and we were unable to secure new ones with the same amount of funding that we needed. In 2014 and 2015 the cultural funding received by the festival was critically low. For this year´s festival, we finally started to get some proper attention and from our city and county, but sadly, this was too late and combined cultural funding was still less than half of what we had realistically expected when compared to other festivals and events.

On top of that, all our artist fees are almost exclusively handled in Euros and between the time we had finished booking the majority of our 2015 line up and their payment date, the booking budget increased by 10%, caused by Euro currency exchange rate alone.

All that being said, we have to face the reality of our situation and go through with what easily is the toughest decision I´ve ever had to make in my life. The current numbers for 2016 indicates another red year, and we would be in a position unable to completely pay all production cost and artist fees.

I feel now that we have failed you, the festival goers, the bands, the volunteers, but at the same time I can´t help but feel proud of what we have achieved during these 7 years. All the hundreds of hours we´ve put into organizing this every year, all the money spent from our own pockets to finance the festival, and last but not least, our outstanding crew and volunteers who have spent their own free time to help create a unique festival experience, year after year. I can´t thank you all enough. On behalf of the entire festival crew, we are forever grateful.

I don´t know what more it is to say, but I want you all to know that if there was a way for us to continue the festival, any way at all, we would have done it.

For those of you who already purchased tickets, a festival representative will contact you through email, regarding the refund of your tickets and hotel packages. We have all your contact information, but kindly ask that you show us some patience, as there will be quite a lot of people we have to contact in the coming weeks.

Again, thank you all for the immense support we´ve received over the years, it´s been overwhelming and a huge moral boost for us, to keep it going all these years. As we´ve always said, we´re a festival by the fans, for the fans. And that, we will always be.

My deepest and sincerest apologies,»

Eirik Tiller
Festival manager
Trondheim Metal Fest