So much for our refunds.....


"It is with great sadness that we announce Baselogic Productions (who you all know as Bloc) has been placed into administration following the events of Friday evening. The team are working hard with the administrators to investigate the issues that led to the closure of the event and people will be updated as and when we have new information. We ask that you allow the administrators time to conduct a thorough investigation so we can establish the facts.
Once again we would like to apologise for all of the frustration and disappointment this situation has caused and thank everyone who has supported the team over the years, your continued support means so much to us.

Please see below a press release from Parker Andrews, the appointed administrators.
Parker Andrews appointed administrators for Base Logic Productions Ltd t/a Bloc
On 11 July 2012, Baselogic Productions Ltd trading as Bloc voluntarily entered administration. The appointed administrator is Jamie Playford of Parker Andrews Insolvency Practitioners. An investigation into the facts leading to Baselogic Productions and the administration will be conducted immediately by Parker Andrews and a further statement will be issued in due course. Jamie Playford said: “It is important that we understand the full facts including what funds will be available to creditors and ticketholders and to ensure the information we provide about the next stages of administration is clear and concise”.

"voluntary entered administration" = doing a runner?

Came here to post that. Surely without refunding anyone and probably not paying all of the scheduled acts they are rolling in cash? I just feel like London (No) Pleasure Gardens and Bloc were on to a good scam. I might put together a rip off of the Sonar website, hire a couple of marquees, stick them up on an abandoned building site and start collecting in some cash. It's seems that's all they did!

If they enter administration they're not going to keep the cash... I mean that's the whole point of administration, distributing the leftover cash.

With experience of previous event companies entering administration, I suggest anyone who bought tickets with their credit card to contact their credit card company and start processing a claim. Credit Card companies protect against companies entering administration that fail to provide service, and should refund you pretty quickly. As for those that paid via debit card, I'm not entirely sure. I'll provide another post should my friend have any success as he bought our 5 tickets on his debit card.....

Baselogic have indeed taken the easy way out. There was no way they were ever going to be in a position to issue refunds, the admin side of that is a mammoth task.


There will be no money left to pay the creditors let alone ticket holders. Whats funny is any remaining funds will be hoovered up by the Insolvency Practitioners just for dealing with it.

In ref to Woony's comments, I'm still waiting to find out if I'll get anything in relation to my previous experience (15 months on), and it's looking very doubtful. Luckily my credit card company paid me 2 months after the event.

Credit card purchasers - get your claim in!

Further to my comment regarding debit cards, my mate just mentioned his (Barclays) has said no...

My only option now is to take a look at my annual travel insurance to see if they have me covered!

Really guys, a little compassion. Surely there is blame to be laid, and I was there, and it was a clusterfuck indeed. But think about how much work went into this to have it all go to shit in the palm of your hands, in front of the whole community. This was certainly not a cae of putting billboards on an abandoned building and collecting cash! I feel for the organizers, and I can understand how, in an effort to have the finances sorted in the most above-board manner possible, they would voluntarily go bankrupt. Not much choice in the wake of the mess. Schade!

Just spoken to Mastercard, they said put a claim in and see what they can do.

Unfortunately, I was advised that I can only claim the second day as I technically went to the first day.... to be continued!

@Woony

If they enter administration they're not going to keep the cash... I mean that's the whole point of administration, distributing the leftover cash.

???

- This is true yes but, there is a pecking order of who gets paid first, I'm sure there are stage builders, lighting, people, sec firms, portaloo companies that are all hight up on the priority list. Because they are companies.

Individual creditors, or people employed on a freelance basics are generally last on the list.

Been in and out of situations with this a few times recently doing work for companies that went into administration.

Realistically, if they turned around and told loads of people your not getting your 100 quid back, how many people would chase it until the better end, they know thats the reality.

Sad but true. They tried to do something amazing, but for what ever reason it totally failed, now its time to "spread the losses"

Not to mentioned the costs the cops will be looking to recoup for the increased volume of bodies they had to send in!

Feeling pretty gutted for purchasing this using my debit card instead of my credit card.

Been battering my credit card of late but still decided to be sensible and use my debit card to buy these. Fucking brilliant.

snap. Such a dufus. More gutted I didn't get to see any of the acts but the 60 squid would be very handy. I'd promise to pump it straight back into the music scene.

As others have said, administration is definitely not 'doing a runner'; all their assets get frozen and carved up among a list of creditors. Unfortunately as ticket holders we're just another creditor, and most likely at the very bottom of that list.


There's a good article here about the site and it's published capacity. What's really interesting is that the renovation work has been paid for using a 3m loan from Newham council that is going to get paid back using proceeds from events held there. If the place and it's management get a bad reputation, (and it's hard to see how they're going to avoid it after the opening two weekends) it's going to become a massive political headache. It's also an official Olympic venue. In that context little things like the MET blaming the problems on rain (of which there was none) rather than appalling management begin to look a lot more calculated than simply preposterous.

Sadly I think that, though they're obviously not without blame, Bloc are going to find themselves doubly fucked as the scapegoats of some heavy political maneuvering.

It will be very interesting to see what happens with some of the forthcoming events planned there (although I definitely won't be queuing up to find out first-hand). Even if someone else were to take over the organisational side and address the capacity issues there still remains the general volume problem - all the arenas were WAY to quiet to be enjoyable for a techno crowd, and I definitely got the impression that this was due to noise regs rather than a lack of power in the system.

Bottom line, I feel sorry for the loss of Bloc but LPG deserve to be given some serious shit over this.

That’s it we won’t get our money back.
Customers are the last ones to get paid after taxman, staff, contractors, and musicians.
Credit Card companies should offer a refund though.

What really bugs me is that this also reflects badly on the London electronic music community.
We are just incapable of putting on decent parties.
Did resident advisor do their due diligence before they agreed to host a stage?

Snap, in the debit card boat, and I used the "Pay with PayPal" option to make things worse. I've contacted PayPal anyway, and I'll give my bank a go...

Check the LPG website : 3,000 capacity for the hub. Check the photos of the event ; the replacement was a duo S5000 from silver stage. That's quoted at around 1,800 capacity. Bear in mind they had an extra 'wing' for shelter that increases it a bit. But also the figure probably doesn't include space for production (i.e. stage / FOH) so that reduces it.) Also bear in mind that the overall site space would have been reduced by the unfinished hub. From what I remember seeing it was just groundworks and a few bits of steel poking out. A bit less than I'd expect a week after it was supposed to be finished!

It won't take very long to divy up the assets, it's not much of a balance sheet, from last year's accounts anyway. Which baselogic is it? There are 2 and one was set up last year.

This is a disaster now. I've worked for a credit card company for a short time and know how difficult it will be to be fully reimbursed and if you get lucky expect to wait a long time to see that money. Does anyone know what the situation is with using PayPal? Never had to claim any refunds from them before.

Paypal is notorious for always siding with the buyer/customer. Although I'm not shure how it works in a case like this where a company goes in administration.

I'm just still gutted that it never happened! I'm more bothered about that than my 60 quid really. (a.k.a. the total cost of one average night out). It would have been awesome.

I remember walking in there and thinking, "there's no way this is going to hold everyone that'll want to see Villalobos."

The other thing that's been forgotten in the fall-out is that the main stage was scheduled to close at 4am. That would have left the Hub, Dome and Boat as the only venues for the last two hours. Even by the most generous estimates that's less than 5,000 capacity. I can't even begin to fathom how anyone thought that would work.

I'm still sickened it never happened as well, but even more sickened after paying for travel and accommodation in London from Thurs - Sun, and £217 on two weekend tickets.

wow, trekked down from Manchester, for what? a queue, no music and not even a refund! Not to mention I wasted over £100 more on travel and accommodation expenses.

This has literally ruined my summer. I cannot afford to go to another festival or do anything else. London Pleasure Gardens, Bloc, and Crowdsurge should ALL be ashamed at the mess that happened here.

BIZARRE wasnt it!!?

I'm sure that Resident Advisor are as pissed off as anyone: they probably paid thousands in sponsorship for the Hub. They'll be in the refund queue same as we - although, I'll wager, considerably closer to the front of it.

Massive ticket oversell, declare adminstration and suddenly music punters are back of the queue...again

I feel you completely man. How's this for a summer. Got Bloc tix and secret garden. Didnt pay off my secret garden deposit in time as net went down so lost tix and deposit. But didnt really care so much coz Bloc...

Bloc happened as it did, so decided to bite the bullet and get another SGP ticket. Got ripped off on gumtree lost money. No Bloc, no secret garden, no money, no summer.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The more this farce unfolds the more I think that the Bloc management must have been living in absolute Fantasy Land.

Then BANG administration welcome back to the real world! I hope for your sake that your better at accounting then event management...

Yo all. What a letdown of a weekend. I called my bank - Lloyd's TSB - explained what happened and that I did not get the services I paid for, they are refunding me within 24 hours. I spoke to the Chargeback and debit / credit card payment department who said they have had quite a few calls about this today. The number is 0845 300 6699 so if there are any Lloyd's TSB customers they should be able to help. Sonar next year for sure.

Trnk I think you've hit the nail on the head.

For those interested and able to understand accounts...Base Logic's, freely available on the web!
companycheck.co.uk/company/05699813
I also think the quietus piece is interesting and an excellent piece of journalism (as someone else has said).

Groove Armada are due to play at the end of Sept or August.....part of me is tempted to go on the off chance it will be deserted?!

As for refunds.....interesting on the TSB Lloyds thing...I might look into it with HSBC...watch this space

Dallas!

A couple of questions I have.

Did Bloc have event insurance so that if something went wrong they could pay the customers back?

And part of me thinks that this was a plan to test the police in the run up to the Olympics? a live test is far better than a simulation.

STFU

Can't you name and shame the organizers? Surely people here know their names and where they live....

They would have taken all the cash out pre administration (probably pre-event as I don't believe for a second they didn't have doubts about this event and were trying to wing it!) that leaves any tangible assets (which this kind of company would have very little of...) to be split out among creditors (with tickeholders ranked lowest in the administration hierarchy) the bloc guys will be living the high life now and all us little guys suffer the loss... Bad news for uk dance music in general... anyone who offers any sympathy to the organisers is either a) their mate or b) deluded.

Insolvency laws are pretty strong in this country.

As a director you can't just take money out of a company and put it into administration; transactions occurring before administration will be looked at and the administrator will seek to recover the monies.

Even so, there will likely be bugger all to pay back the punters once the taxman, staff, police etc. have been paid.

Your best best is to use section 75 of the CCA (for credit card purchases) or the chargeback scheme (for debit card purchases) to reclaim the money from your bank.

Good luck people!

As much as it makes for a better story, there is no way they are sitting on stacks of cash from a quick transfer before they went to the wall.
The costs of the artists alone, prior to the massive fees the police will charge, will mean there is no chance of even a slight refund - and because they are now defunct, there won't be free tickets to future events either.
A previous post also makes the interesting point that it would be a nightmare to return the cash anyway.
Unfortunately, just hit up your bank and try to get a refund that way, or just forget about it...

what pisses me off is that police statement blaming rain!

if any of the people that helped create Bloc 2012 are reading these comments, then please please please stop working in the events industry, you are ruining peoples lives!

what a mess. feel for all you guys. inc bloc promoters.
sure this wasnt their intention.

yeah its a real shame as the potential was massive. not a good start for a new venue. will they be able to over come the bad taste the weekend has left.... i really do hope so!

Cheer up and read this:
tonkawrdm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/wrdm-is-one.html

Looking forward to this 'interview'. A masterclass in spin and excuse-fabrication in the making. Whatever the explanation is, I don't think they're gonna be able to pull the wool over the eyes of those who experiences that total mess. All they can do is concede their errors now, and give us all our money back.

I think the worst thing about the whole situation is the fact that they didnt Insure this event. 15K people and no contingency Insurance. Absolutely shameful.

Feel for all the people who travelled from afar or made ends meet to go to this.

ruined lives.

I say, a short jaunt up the Lea river seek and yee shall find a vessel in no comparison to the Stubnitz.