The credit crunch and a spell of bad weather make a cruel combination for outdoor festival promoters. Showbiz Correspondent Maureen Coleman assesses what the future holds for these summer rock events

The promoters of Belfast’s new festival Belsonic will be keeping their fingers crossed for good weather this week when the only outdoor rock music event of the summer kicks off.

Tickets for the three-night event are so far selling well and a break from the persistent rain is likely to bring more people out to Custom House Square to see the line-up of international and local acts.

With a capacity of around 5,000, the promoters have been realistic in choosing Custom House Square as the venue of choice for their first festival. Given the current climate — both meteorological and financial — a larger outdoor arena may not have pulled in the crowds. But the promoters are so confident of the event being a success, they’re already planning next
year’s.

With the cancellation of this year’s Tennents ViTal festival due to the over-saturation of the market place and problems securing big enough headline acts, it’s a happy coincidence that the people behind Belsonic decided to launch it this year and should be applauded for working so hard to bring acts like The Flaming Lips, The Enemy and The Zutons to Belfast at a time when festivals and concerts are being cancelled across the UK.

Only this week another local music festival became the latest victim of the credit crunch.

The Stendhal Festival in Limavady has been scrapped due to “abysmal” ticket sales, despite securing a number of high profile acts.

The two-day festival had been due to get under way this weekend on land at Ballymully Cottage Farm with high-profile band Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. due to headline on the main stage on Saturday evening.

Other shows including The Police’s massive outdoor gig at Stormont earlier in the summer fell short on ticket sales by about 10,000 while smaller gigs in various venues around the province have felt the pinch. When the Belsonic promoters decided to launch a new boutique-style festival in Belfast, it had not emerged that ViTal would not be going ahead.

The cancellation will undoubtedly be a bonus to them as they don’t have another local show to compete with now.

Despite this, the promoters say they believe there will definitely be room for both events next year.

A spokesm an for Belsonic said: “We are planning for Belsonic to take place as an annual event and feel that Belsonic and Tennents ViTal are not mutually exclusive.

“It's clear that the live music market is buckling under the strain of the amount of festivals this year. We feel that Belsonic has succeeded since it's really the only large-scale outdoor event in Northern Ireland this summer.”

In the light of the dismal summer we’ve had so far, Belsonic will hopefully put a smile back on the faces of local music fans and give them another important date to put in their calendars for 2009.