“Manchester’s own Fyre Festival” – disappointed fans speak out on Co-Op Live cancellations

nme.com:

NME, dubbing the situation “just a joke at this point”.Yesterday (May 1) thousands of people made their way, again, to Manchester’s new Co-Op Live, the recently-built “largest in-door arena” in the UK.

With a grand opening that’s been marred by pushbacks, reschedules, controversial comments about grassroots venues being “poorly run”, and the executive director resigning: the new gig space has been beleaguered by a series of chaotic issues.Aside from a test event featuring Rick Astley for which some tickets were cancelled, reducing the audience to 11,000, the venue has yet to run a show successfully on the day it was originally scheduled.It was supposed to open with performances from Peter Kay on April 23 and 24, but the shows were moved to April 29 and 30 due to the venue’s power testing falling “a few days” behind schedule.

Then a gig from The Black Keys that was scheduled for April 27 had to be moved to May 15, while the Peter Kay shows were moved again to later this month.With A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie then falling as the opening act last night, the show was cancelled due to “a venue-related technical issue” just 10 minutes after doors opened – meaning there were already people outside the venue waiting to head in.

This left many fans disappointed, frustrated and fed up.“We travelled like two hours… it’s just poor, if you’re gonna cancel it, cancel beforehand, so we don’t spend money on getting here,” one fan told NME. “There’s thousands of people stood outside and you cancel it half an hour after the doors were meant to be open?” added her friend. “It’s stupid.”A spokesperson for the venue told Manchester Evening News that the technical issue was caused by part of an air conditioning unit falling from the gantry inside.