Fallen festival Bloc Weekend appears to be back – albeit in a slightly different form.
Until last year, Bloc enjoyed an ascending profile as one of the UK’s most celebrated festivals. 2012 saw it move from its regular home at Butlin’s Holiday Resort, Minehead, to a new venue in the form of Olympic site London Pleasure Gardens. The result was a disaster for the festival: on Friday, July 6, it was shut down several hours into its first night due to fears of overcrowding.
Depending on who you believe, this either happened due to Bloc over-selling tickets or under-staffing the event, ticketing company CrowdSurge’s flaws (many attendees reported on their tickets not being adequately checked upon entry), London Pleasure Gardens being inadequate or a combination of the aforementioned. Regardless, on July 11, Baselogic Productions Ltd – the company behind Bloc – voluntarily entered administration.
Now, as Stool Pigeon point out, a new Bloc website has appeared online. Bloclondon.com at this point merely features the website’s URL, written in the same font as Bloc’s 2012 design, but our money’s on it eventually featuring information on a smaller Bloc festival taking place this Summer (Bloc’s Facebook page already links to it). It’s been privately understood for some time that Bloc intended to return despite 2012’s shutdown and subsequent fallout, and this appears to be the first public sign.