Artists Drop Out, Raise Doubts About Huge Bay Area Music Festival
ANTIOCH (KPIX 5) -- A music festival set to kick off in the Bay Area this weekend promises seven stages with more than 100 performing artists but some musicians who are scheduled to perform are raising questions about whether the promises are too good to be true.
The XO Music Festival is scheduled for July 13th through 15th at the Contra Costa Event Park (formerly the county fairgrounds).
UPDATE: XO Music Fest Organizer Facing Real Estate Fraud Charges With Brother
Organizers insist the show will go forward with big names on the bill, including Ludacris, T.I. and Vanilla Ice. But in the last few days, some musicians have publicly raised doubts about the festival on social media while announcing they were dropping out.
Musician Trinere V. Farrington apologized to her fans on Facebook, saying she will not perform because of the business practices of the organizers.
"I want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to all my fans that have purchased tickets," she wrote, announcing she would not be attending the concert.
" … because business wasn't handled properly, myself and many of the Freestyle artists had no choice but to pull out! I was praying this wasn't the case, that this company would prove everyone and all the rumors wrong and come through at the last minute with flights, money etc.. this week, but they have not!" she wrote.
Brent Curriden of Lords of Sealand announced he is also dropping out, tweeting that he is done "fighting to get fair compensation."
"It could be a disaster or it could be somebody's going to pull this off and it could be the biggest event that we've had here," said Mario "Mars" Delgado, a horror-core artist from Pittsburg.
Delgado met KPIX5 at the fairgrounds and pointed out there is no activity, just four days before the concert.
"I've played a lot of festivals. I've played the Gathering of the Juggalos many years and it takes them about a week to set up for something like that," Delgado said. "We're here and there's no trailers or staff. There's still garbage over here … nothing is set up."
An unidentified person from the XO Music Festival Twitter account responded to a KPIX inquiry, insisting the festival will go on as planned: "Honestly, everything is perfect. These few artists that we canceled today from the festival were offered to us by an agency in NY.
"When we found out that they didn't have the rights to them we decided to cancel them and let our fans know. That's all. Thank you."
Joe Brengle, the CEO of the Contra Costa Event Park told KPIX5 the festival organizer, Sami Habib of World Class Entertainment, had paid $27,000 in full to rent the facility. He said he has heard rumors artists were dropping out of the concert but Brengle said Habib has not confirmed any of those rumors.
"We have no reason to believe that this event is not going to take place," Brengle said. "They are supposed to start set up in the next two days."
"If we foresee that event is not taking place, we will start asking questions," Brengle added. "If we feel this is not going to come together, we will put out a press release from the fairgrounds in regards to that."
