The DoLab team had some bad news for what would have been this year’s Lightning in a Bottle Attendees: the festival will not take place this year due to the global pandemic, as well as guidelines set forth by the CDC. Sadly, the company is not able to issue refunds for this year’s event. The team behind Lightning in a Bottle shared the details in an email below:
Dear LIB community,
We realize everyone is anxious about the status of LIB and the availability of refunds. We also understand your need for accurate information and that you wish we offered a clearly planned out solution before we announced the cancellation. Unfortunately at the time we had to make our announcement we simply did not, and still do not have enough information to do that.
Here is what we can tell you definitively:
The 2020 edition of Lightning in a Bottle is cancelled. We will not be postponing it to a later date this year. We do however plan to move forward and begin production on the 2021 edition of Lightning in a Bottle, to be held over Memorial Day Weekend next year.
Sadly, we cannot offer refunds for the cancelled event. We are, however, working on a plan to make you whole over the next few LIB’s. This will include a system for crediting you for future years. More information on this plan will be presented in the coming weeks.
If you took part in the layaway plan, all future payments have been suspended. The payments you have completed will be credited to you in our new plan which will be presented in the coming weeks.
Although we are insured, our policy, like most insurance policies, excludes this pandemic.
We know how difficult this situation is for everyone, many of you losing jobs and income. We also had to layoff our entire office, production staff and build crews, putting hundreds of people out of work.
We are not able to give you quick answers because we want to provide the best possible solution under the circumstances. Please be patient.
We understand that some of this news will not be received well. It is important for everyone to understand that Lightning in a Bottle is owned and operated as a small family business, as it has been since the beginning. The reason we are not able to offer refunds is that we are an independent company, we have no parent company with deep pockets or outside investors. At this time all of the money that was brought in through ticket sales was already paid out on non-refundable deposits, building materials and staff to bring the festival to life. Nobody saw this pandemic coming and unfortunately it has left the future of Lightning in a Bottle in an extremely precarious position, but we have every intention of finding our way through this mess and doing what is right for our fans and community. Together with your support we will find a way for LIB to carry on.
We would like to thank all of you for that continued support, patience and understanding through this difficult time and we will be reaching out again soon with more information.
Love,
Jesse, Josh, Dede Flemming – The Do LaB Team
The festival is not the only one to have to credit attendees by other means; Ultra Music festival is offering passes for 2021 and 2022 along with other benefits and SXSW is not issuing refunds at all. Currently, Movement Electronic Music Festival and Coachella are offering full refunds to their postponed festivals in September and October, respectively. Ticket-holders to Movement will have their passes honored at either their new September dates or May 2021 if they can’t make the postponed dates. More info for Movement Electronic Music Festival here.
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