It's sort of tragic that the grand visions of an alternative film festival taking root in Cockatoo Island has crashed and burned. Now we find they've burned so bad it's singed to a stump a lot of good will.
Late last year Zitserman and Kazantzidis admitted being devastated by the looming collapse of the festival and stood to lose seven years of work and much of their $500,000 investment that included equipment purchases for subsequent events.
They say there were 34,000 admissions - with both paid and free tickets - to what they hoped would become an internationally recognised festival.
Their company, Cockatoo Institute Ltd, subsequently went into administration. The administrator's report found debts of $1.77 million, with creditors including the trust ($272,000), TriPoint Rigging Services ($91,000), Coates Hire ($72,000), the Australian Taxation Office ($65,000) and Hoyts Cinema Technology ($62,000). It also said the company had ''likely'' traded while insolvent.
A trio of companies associated with the organisers - Cockatoo Enterprises, Cockatoo Film and Dungog Film Festival - were creditors for more than $500,000. Zitserman and Kazantzidis have agreed not to claim these debts under a deed of company arrangement.
At an emotional meeting, creditors voted to accept up to 9¢ in the dollar.
I'm not surprised by any of this given how chaotic and insane the lack of organisation was at the festival. I'm particularly not surprised given that the whole thing was the brainchild of Stavros Kazantzidis. Still, I sort of hoped it would find some legs and run instead of crash and burn so badly as it has. The interesting bit is perhaps in the numerical description of the failure:
''So why did people not come? My personal view is they didn't come because they didn't know about it - it was badly publicised. It was undoubtedly the worst organised event that has ever happened on Cockatoo Island.''
Bailey says the organisers vastly overstated the attendance.
''The directors were assuring us right up until the last couple of weeks that 53,000 people would definitely be there.''
Instead of the claimed 34,000 admissions over five days, Bailey says that laser counters on the island wharves indicate less than 16,000 came to the island.
This included 5000 for the concerts and 1900 staff and festival volunteers.
''That leaves you with 9000 and, of those, the vast majority were complimentary tickets. Take 2000 on opening night and you're down to 7000.''
Bailey says the trust lost more than $500,000 because of the festival, having paid six ferry operators for a shuttle service to the island every 20 minutes from 8am to 2am to cater for the expected 53,000.
''We were very concerned that we honoured those contracts with those ferry operators because we didn't want to be putting them out. So it's been a very unhappy experience.''
Wow. What a disaster.
There's Incompetent, And Then There's Criminal
The Cockatoo Island Film festival might go down as the biggest disaster in Film Festivals, but Peats Ridge Festival might go down as the biggest snatch-and-grab in the history of festivals in this country.
Mr. Grant’s issued statement reads that despite “an incredible 2012 Peats Ridge Festival… that the income from ticket sales and other sources fell below that required to meet the costs of the event.”
Attendance figures for the 2012 festival are not currently available, but in a simple maths equation, to meet the $1.2 million figure owed to creditors, a little over 3,500 of the $340 Adult 3-day season pass would need to be sold, yet the original creditors report indicates that Peats Ridge declared only $140,000 of its own money on the books, which equals a little over 400 Adult season pass tickets sold.
Surely Peats Ridge were expecting more than that if they had risked booking headliners John Butler Trio for $95,000, and those ticket sales figures do not account for the money earned from the bar; for which Sorted Events, the beverage catering company who provided the bars onsite, are owed a whopping $283,726.
“You can do the simple math from the gate and the bar… and the numbers just don’t add up. This is a job now for the liquidators to do a forensic examination,” says Mal Tulloch of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) – the union representing the artists, performers, and crew still vastly out of pocket who mobilised the decision to re-appoint new administrators.
They are talking about creditors getting about 3cents in the dollar. Peats Ridge Festival has been a dosgy affair for some years now. I've even heard a drummer who played there tell me he didn't get paid and swore he would never play there again. Lots of people have been ripped off for years, and each year they would bankrupt the company and 'phoenix' it to run the festival again and not pay anybody.
The thing is that there's so much of this sort of thing going on and with ASIC never investigating any of these corporate pea-and-shell games, it's not surprising that a guy like Matt Grant's decided it's cool to make it an annual event. They keep talking about tightening laws surrounding phoenix-ing companies, but it never seems to come to pass, and these entities just keep on keeping on. The miracle in this case with the Peats Ridge Festival is that they've managed to dislodge the administrator appointed by Matt Grant.
Wow What a Catastrophe.
Try Connecting This One
Remember that lady who wet missing from the Kings Cross hospital a little while ago and became a kind of social media cause? yes, Belinda Burcham. It turns out she's linked to the Obeids.
Belinda Burcham, the 40-year-old whose week-long disappearance from St Vincent's Hospital earlier this year sparked a massive social media campaign, is alleged to have procured crucial proxy votes which helped Moses Obeid avoid paying a $16.6 million debt to the City of Sydney council.
On August 9 last year, the Herald revealed Moses Obeid, the son of ALP kingpin Eddie, had his debt to the council wiped out after smaller creditors - who included family, friends and associates - voted to accept a Deed of Company Arrangement which meant they would receive only between 1¢ and 3¢ in the dollar for the debts owed to them by his company Streetscape Projects.
So it would seem her disappearance at the time might have had something to do with the small matter of the ICAC investigation into the doings of the Obeid clan.
Peter Gosnell, from website Sydney Insolvency News, who attended the hearing before Justice Paul Brereton, reported that the council contended Ms Burcham advised the former cleaner that the $690 debt owed to her by Streetscape would be paid in full if the cleaner agreed to direct her proxy to vote for the deed of arrangement.
The court also heard that before the meeting Ms Burcham also met creditor Maria Costa, who was told by Ms Burcham that Costa Enterprises' $1000 debt would also be paid in full, rather than the $30 she might receive as a creditor, if she agreed to direct her proxy in favour of the arrangement, Mr Gosnell reported.Moses Obeid has disputed the council's claims in documents filed with the court.Ms Burcham, a long-time friend of Mr Moses and his wife, Nikki, has been employed as the office manager at the Obeid headquarters in Birkenhead Point. Ms Burcham will face Waverley court on Monday charged with several break and enter offences.
Am I the only one that thinks this city needs a thorough cleansing?
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