SHAMBHALA POSTPONES 23RD EDITION UNTIL 2021

As music festivals all across the world shutter their doors during 2020’s Armageddon, another one bites the dust – and this time, it’s a particularly good one. For those unfamiliar with Shambhala, it’s a camping festival deep in the wilderness of British Columbia, Canada, just north of Washington in the Salmo River Valley, shrouded by the Selkirk Mountain range. This year marks the first time in more than 20 laps around the sun that the festival will not take place, which really sucks because take a look at that lineup. A moment of silence for our fallen festival.

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Shambhala, like many music festivals (namely Ultra), has decided against issuing refunds, citing “postponement” in their reasoning, “All 2020 tickets and lodging packages will be valid for a future date across the following three-years (2021, 2022 or 2023). No action is required from you at this time. Our Customer Service team will be reaching out to 2020 guests over the coming weeks to transfer your tickets and/or lodging to a future year. We would like to thank you for your patience as we roll out this process.” The driving force behind this difficult decision?Apocalyptic (irony intended) financial turmoil, no doubt.

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No individual or entity could have predicted this sims-game-gone-wrong, madhouse of epidemiological seppuku that is 2020 in a nutshell. Nor could they have predicted the consequences for the entertainment industry, which measure in the macros, the multi-billions. However, normal Americans are grieving and even non-profits like Burning Man have executed emergency amendments their bylaws, issuing full refunds (while also pleading for tax-deductible charitable donations). Obviously, legal postponement extends a life-saving raft for festivals expecting to report suffocating capital losses, but is that bandaid worth the outcry from hurting festival goers? In the long term, the implications of postponement, on both solvency and fandom, are veiled – into unknown, with angry and shaded festival goers, the live entertainment industry embarks.

For more information about Shambhala and its postponement, click here.

Saracha

Heralding from sunny South Florida, I am a proud Florida Woman. In my free time, I surf the swamp, wrangle gators, open fan mail, and tend to my pets. In the wild, I’m most often spotted at immersive art spaces, step tappin’ in a shadowed corner of the club, hater blockerz on, totally incognito as your resident EDM spice girl. Although I generally tout my spicy side, if there’s one thing I’d love to impress upon the world, it would be this: it’s not a waste to give love to those who do not deserve it – it’s a gift. The world would be a better place if we gave, in kindness and in mercy, to those who need it most with no expectation in return.

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