The operators of Bayside Festival have posted the following statement on their website:

“We regret to confirm that Mainsail Ltd went into administration on Friday, August 3.

“Our priority now is naturally the welfare of our employees, who have worked tirelessly over many months to bring the vision for the Olympics in Weymouth alive.

“We are proud of them all and would like to thank them for all they have done. But please go to Weymouth and see the Olympics for yourselves.”Officials have been telling traders that the council will not be taking over the Bayside Festival site and that it will remain closed.

 

 

Following the closure of the Bayside Festival new plans have just been confirmed for musical entertainment.

Max Grayson, business manager at Weymouth Pavilion, said: "We can confirm that following the closure of the Bayside Festival the pavilion, Hourglass Promotions and Atlantic Audio will provide entertainment based at the pavilion each night from 7pm with low entry costs.

There will be national acts playing and it will be fantastic for the town."

Jonathan Lane, who runs Hourglass Promotions, said: "It will be great for the town and the Olympics happening is once in a lifetime.

"We have no bands confirmed at the moment but we will be getting national acts to play for each night during the rest of the Games."

This does not include Funeral for a Friend who were already booked to play at the Pavilion tonight and are subject to normal admission prices

The Bayside Festival in Weymouth has closed.

The company said today: “Due to dire visitor numbers to Weymouth, Bayside Festival organisers have elected to voluntarily liquidate the business and close the site.”

Traders were told this morning that the attraction near Weymouth Pavilion was not financially viable and would close immediately.

But traders who have paid thousands of pounds for pitches at the festival village are demanding that it is reopened immediately so they can continue trading.

There will be musical acts every night in the Pavilion instead of the Bayside Festival.

Tonight Funeral for a Friend are due to play and a host of acts are being lined up for the following week.

The Pavilion has joined forces with Houirglass Promotions and Atlantic Audio to sort out a new line up. It appears that Bayside village will not reopen at all.

No word yet on whether peole who bought tickets for planned acts at Bayside Festival will get their money back.

For live updates, go to our rolling Olympics blog.

A DESPERATE bid earlier in the week to slash entry fees and ticket prices couldn’t keep the Bayside Festival going.

It was set up on a 13,300 square metre site behind the Weymouth Pavilion Theatre and cost organisers around £700,000 to stage.

Organisers Mainsail have worked on the America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race and the Fastnet Race and ran a large part of the shoreside programme at Cowes Week.

Festival managing director Joe Hall said the most they had at any one time on the 9,000 people-capacity Bayside Festival site during the Olympics was 3,600 people.

On Monday, he said: “We want to be entertaining a lot more people. It’s been disappointing in terms of numbers.

After evening concert ticket prices were slashed from £10 to £5, Mr Hall said that festival goers who had already bought tickets at full price would be offered additional tickets.

In response to the low turn-out for the festival and traders claiming their takings were down 50 per cent on this time last year, Olympic organisers launched a ‘Come to Weymouth’ strategy.

Tweeters spent much of yesterday posting ‘Come to Weymouth’ tweets on social networking Twitter in a bid to attract people to the resort.

A statement from Bayside Festival organisers on Twitter blames the site closure on 'dire' vistor numbers.

It says: "Due to dire visitor numbers to Weymouth, Bayside Festival organisers have elected to voluntarily liquidate the business and close the site."