TORONTO, ON (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Virgin Mobile's 2010 summer music festivals across Canada have been cancelled because of economic conditions and difficulty getting headline bands, the company announced Thursday.
Toronto hosted the first Canadian Virgin Festival in 2006, and expanded to include festivals in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax by 2009. However, Virgin Mobile said it’s taking a break until 2011 because of the still-recovering economy and the lack of available headliners this year.
“Like everybody last year, 2009, for the entire world, and in every industry was a bit different and a bit challenging. And when we got into 2010 we didn’t have luck in securing the headliners that we would have liked to have pursued,” said Virgin Mobile Canada Chief Marketing Officer Nathan Rosenberg.
“In the last couple of months as we’ve been trying to put the list together, it just didn’t get to the stage that we thought, ‘This is an event that we want to present to people who have been to Virgin Festivals.’ If we can’t produce a festival that provides a talent lineup that we think is appropriate, we won’t go ahead with it,” Rosenberg continued according to The Toronto Sun.
Last year’s Toronto Virgin festival was originally scheduled to be held in Barrie, Ont., and include camping, however, poor ticket sales led it to be moved to Molson Canadian Amphitheatre.
Rosenberg is hopeful the Virgin Festival will return to Canada next year.
“As we move into 2011 we believe that consumer confidence will return, people’s discretionary income will increase and as a result we’ll certainly feel a greater level of confidence in presenting the festival as a marquee part of (our music strategy) as well again next year,” he said. “Assuming we get the right talent. We have a desire to do that again. From a Virgin Festival point of view, we still absolutely believe in the property,” according to The Toronto Sun. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
