Sonisphere cancelled due to poor ticket sales; The Big Chill aborted due to an Olympics clash; the Bloc debacle – 2012 hasn’t been a banner year for the homegrown festival.

The latest bash to get its fingers burned is Sussex’s Meadowlands Festival, which took place on June 1-3. On the surface, the festival proceeded fairly smoothly, featuring sets by the likes of Speech Debelle, Fink and Lamb. According to a letter circulated among senior management, however, the festival has “lost a considerable amount of money” and is currently unable to pay the acts.

The document, sourced by Music Week, says, with startling frankness, “right now, we have no available funds”. It goes on to describe how the organisers are dealing with the deficit: “We have at present paid all of the infrastructure costs as a priority to ensure that we can put the festival on again next year, we are relying on the generosity of our investors to show faith and help us to achieve this. The [lost] money will take time to recoup as the Directors are presently arranging funds, not only to pay outstanding bills from this years festival but hopefully, to make Meadowlands 2013 a reality”.

The letter also reveals that festival directors are underwriting investments themselves; rather portentously, the letter says this is to “ensure that the company does not go bankrupt, which if it does, there are no winners”. With any luck, this will be the last crisis in festivalland’s annus horribilis.