PPUK III - Uupdate:
New venue, Friday night added... First bands announced!
If youre reading this, then chances are you came to ProgPower UK I, or ProgPower UK II, or are thinking of coming to ProgPower UK III or maybe all three. Whichever, ProgPower UK couldnt happen without your support, and we thank you sincerely for that. However, as we pride ourselves on our openness and honesty, we felt it necessary to write an open letter to explain the forthcoming changes to the festival.
For ProgPower UK to survive and develop we have had to put some serious thought into the way forward. To be brutally honest, over the past two years ProgPower UK has lost enough money to buy a house; a small house admittedly, but we cannot keep the gig going while losing money hand-over-fist every year.
ProgPower UK has a long-term plan, but with any business, you have to be flexible and adapt to the market. Given the financial position, the most logical thing to do would probably be to pull the plug on ProgPower UK, but a lot of you have said a lot of great things about the show, and that makes us want to keep it going.
We want to stick to the ProgPower ethos, of putting together a balanced bill of well-known top bands and up-and-coming talent. This is the cornerstone of what we are trying to achieve, and when you look at the last two years line-ups we hope you agree that we have booked some extremely good bands so far. But bringing quality bands to the UK doesnt come cheap
Looking at our options, we could see three ways forward. We could reduce the quality of future line-ups, which would go against everything we believe in. We could hike up the ticket prices massively to cover costs, but this was an option we didnt seriously wish to pursue. Or we could find a new venue
A new venue And a full Friday night show!
So, ProgPower UK has found a new home. We know that everyone who came to ProgPower UK thought that The Centaur was an incredible venue, but it comes with the corresponding price-tag and that just is not viable for a festival like PPUK. We have therefore taken the decision to move to THE ANSON ROOMS in Bristol University. This new venue that still allows us to do everything we want to, and, where in addition, we will now be able to run a full Friday night show (instead of just a small pre-show party) and then an all-day Saturday in the same venue.
There will be a combined ticket available for the Friday/Saturday, at a reduced price, as well as individual tickets for each day available for each of the days as well. There will still be all the other great things that ProgPower UK is renowned for, like the metal market, giveaways, the Elixir guitar battle, the great ProgPower UK atmosphere and, of course, a stunning array of bands. None of that will change!
The Anson Rooms is a very easy venue to get to, with good rail and road links straight to the City. Also, being in a more central location, it has shops, bars, cafes and restaurants all with in a couple of minutes walk.
Perhaps the most important change that we want everyone to note is that there will be a strict limit of 800 tickets available. This means that buying your ticket in advance will be essential, as, given the numbers who have attended in the past two years, we do not expect to have any tickets available by the time the doors open on the day. In order to accommodate this, there will also be a reduction in the number of press passes available.
We would also like to highlight now the fact that, in order to secure the future of ProgPower UK, we have had to take the decision to increase ticket prices a little more than we would have wished to. For every person who thinks this is a rip-off, were hoping that another ten or so will appreciate the economics behind something as expensive as ProgPower UK and understand that if ProgPower UK III does not come close to breaking even, there will be no ProgPower UK IV. End of story.
There is no hidden agenda here; all we want to do is keep going and deliver a great festival year-on-year, and we felt it important to explain our actions to you. All the ProgPower festivals have had to move venues at some point, and so in that respect were just following the trend! In the meantime, thank you again for your support you guys rock!
Kicking off the announcement with our first six bands...
FRIDAY 28th March 2008
VANDEN PLAS (headline)
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
tba
THY MAJESTIE
SATURDAY 29th MARCH 2008
tba
tba
tba
DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA
POWER QUEST
tba
SERENITY
New venue, Friday night added... First bands announced!
If youre reading this, then chances are you came to ProgPower UK I, or ProgPower UK II, or are thinking of coming to ProgPower UK III or maybe all three. Whichever, ProgPower UK couldnt happen without your support, and we thank you sincerely for that. However, as we pride ourselves on our openness and honesty, we felt it necessary to write an open letter to explain the forthcoming changes to the festival.
For ProgPower UK to survive and develop we have had to put some serious thought into the way forward. To be brutally honest, over the past two years ProgPower UK has lost enough money to buy a house; a small house admittedly, but we cannot keep the gig going while losing money hand-over-fist every year.
ProgPower UK has a long-term plan, but with any business, you have to be flexible and adapt to the market. Given the financial position, the most logical thing to do would probably be to pull the plug on ProgPower UK, but a lot of you have said a lot of great things about the show, and that makes us want to keep it going.
We want to stick to the ProgPower ethos, of putting together a balanced bill of well-known top bands and up-and-coming talent. This is the cornerstone of what we are trying to achieve, and when you look at the last two years line-ups we hope you agree that we have booked some extremely good bands so far. But bringing quality bands to the UK doesnt come cheap
Looking at our options, we could see three ways forward. We could reduce the quality of future line-ups, which would go against everything we believe in. We could hike up the ticket prices massively to cover costs, but this was an option we didnt seriously wish to pursue. Or we could find a new venue
A new venue And a full Friday night show!
So, ProgPower UK has found a new home. We know that everyone who came to ProgPower UK thought that The Centaur was an incredible venue, but it comes with the corresponding price-tag and that just is not viable for a festival like PPUK. We have therefore taken the decision to move to THE ANSON ROOMS in Bristol University. This new venue that still allows us to do everything we want to, and, where in addition, we will now be able to run a full Friday night show (instead of just a small pre-show party) and then an all-day Saturday in the same venue.
There will be a combined ticket available for the Friday/Saturday, at a reduced price, as well as individual tickets for each day available for each of the days as well. There will still be all the other great things that ProgPower UK is renowned for, like the metal market, giveaways, the Elixir guitar battle, the great ProgPower UK atmosphere and, of course, a stunning array of bands. None of that will change!
The Anson Rooms is a very easy venue to get to, with good rail and road links straight to the City. Also, being in a more central location, it has shops, bars, cafes and restaurants all with in a couple of minutes walk.
Perhaps the most important change that we want everyone to note is that there will be a strict limit of 800 tickets available. This means that buying your ticket in advance will be essential, as, given the numbers who have attended in the past two years, we do not expect to have any tickets available by the time the doors open on the day. In order to accommodate this, there will also be a reduction in the number of press passes available.
We would also like to highlight now the fact that, in order to secure the future of ProgPower UK, we have had to take the decision to increase ticket prices a little more than we would have wished to. For every person who thinks this is a rip-off, were hoping that another ten or so will appreciate the economics behind something as expensive as ProgPower UK and understand that if ProgPower UK III does not come close to breaking even, there will be no ProgPower UK IV. End of story.
There is no hidden agenda here; all we want to do is keep going and deliver a great festival year-on-year, and we felt it important to explain our actions to you. All the ProgPower festivals have had to move venues at some point, and so in that respect were just following the trend! In the meantime, thank you again for your support you guys rock!
Kicking off the announcement with our first six bands...
FRIDAY 28th March 2008
VANDEN PLAS (headline)
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
tba
THY MAJESTIE
SATURDAY 29th MARCH 2008
tba
tba
tba
DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA
POWER QUEST
tba
SERENITY
