Musicians crowdfund after collapse of Doune the Rabbit Hole festival

Artists have begun crowdfunding after some were not paid for performances at Doune the Rabbit Hole festival.

The company behind the music event entered liquidation last week, having run the festival for nearly 15 years.

The festival was held in July, having been cancelled twice due to Covid.

Festival director Craig Murray said he felt "genuinely absolutely dreadful" that some artists had not received payment but believed the festival "has a future".

He said that the company had entered into financial difficulty over the last three years.

Doune the Rabbit Hole was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, incurring huge losses and in 2021, it was also cancelled after Covid regulations were extended.

Mr Murray said: "Then the 2022 festival, we decided the only way to recover the financial situation would be to go much bigger to try to make enough profit to cover that and we thought that was working until really just a few weeks before the festival."

The company had hoped 12,000 people would buy tickets but in the end only 6,000 attended the festival.

"We spoke to organisers of other festivals and everyone said that post-Covid people were waiting until the last minute to buy," Mr Murray added.

"We'd always seen 30% of our ticket sales in the last couple of weeks and so we thought, it's going to come through, a surge is going to come."

The company received £60,000 of National Lottery funding in May 2022 and £45,000 in Covid recovery funds.

Mr Murray insists that these grants were put towards paying artists and suppliers although it was a small amount compared to the costs of the festival.

Stina Tweeddale was one of the artists who has not been paid for her appearance and she has started a crowdfunding page for those in the same position.

She said it had "a really significant impact" because for her band Honeyblood, it was their first gig after Covid.

"The amount of money and effort that went into actually putting the wheels into motion of getting back on stage was quite a significant amount," she added.

"I think a lot of artists were in that position. This was obviously a rollover gig from 2020 so we were holding up our side of the contract there by going and playing the gig.

"I'm out of pocket for a significant amount because I've already paid my staff so I didn't want to leave them without their wages."

Despite Doune The Rabbit Hole Festival Ltd entering liquidation, Mr Murray believes the festival does have a future.

"We believe it can go forward and we think we can make money that will enable us over time to pay off the people that are unfortunately owed," he said.