Romanian promoter Interval closes amid €70k debts

Romanian festival promoter Interval is to cease operations immediately following “massive financial losses” in the 13 months since the fire at the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest.

Interval – which stages the 100-hour Interval 100 house/techno festival in Cluj-Napoca; Interval Natural, in a castle in Transylvania; and the Romanian edition of Boiler Room, also in Bucharest – says in a statement it is “no longer able to continue putting together our next events […] until all our debts have been paid”.

Despite Interval not promoting the Colectiv show, the inaugural Interval 100 (then called simply Interval) in Bucharest last November was badly affected by the Colectiv fire, with several venues pulling out amid what the promoter called a “witch hunt” by authorities in the aftermath of the tragedy.

There was a mass closure of venues considered to be unsafe following the disaster, in which 64 people lost their lives after pyrotechnics ignited inflammable acoustic foam in the 700-capacity club.

In an interview with Electronic Beats, Interval’s Irina Bako said the promoter lost €85,000 on Interval 2015, which went ahead with half its original line-up.

“It will take a series of small miracles for us to resume this hiatus”

Interval says 2016 has been little better: “The circumstances behind this year’s edition were almost as rough as the ones we faced last year. […] It’s been very difficult to control all the random factors that influenced our move to Cluj-Napoca, and we relied on our previous experiences, hoping there would be enough of a crowd to justify the budget, but we’ve misjudged the numbers, musical awareness and financial potency of the local underground clubgoers.”

Resident Advisor reports Interval 100 2016, which ran from 29 November to 4 December, lost €70,000.

“It will take a series of small miracles for us to resume this hiatus,” concludes Interval’s statement, but we’ll do all we can to recover from this and keep things moving forward for Romania’s electronic music scene – it’s the main meaning and biggest goal in our collective lives as an organisation.

“We are immensely disappointed, but we will take this as a lesson learned and focus all our efforts on making other great things happen in the future once this chapter has been closed.”

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