Dear Valued Customers,

Music Is Life writes this update to you all for NO OTHER reason but to give you just a snippet and our side with the below explanation of the situation at hand.

Music Is Life has exhausted all avenues in our fight and whilst we were given advice by our legal team not to respond to you all, we found this to be an odd suggestion and direction that we have consistently argued against as we believe you all should be updated and deserve consistent updates. We realized and understood from our Legal advice that we couldn’t go into detail about the matter as it could have jeopardized our case.  But we continually felt you all should at least be entitled to a response, so here it is as we now LITERALLY have nothing to lose.

So…  Here is a brief rundown of a complicated situation.  We unreservedly understand this will bring no satisfaction to many, if not all of you and we truly understand frustrations.

Music Is Life approached our legal team for advice on the possible Postponement situation back in December of 2021 and we continued to monitor the Government’s Directives throughout January 2022, to make sure we could make the right call given ALL scenarios and circumstances surrounding COVID if and when it came to making that decision so we could ensure that the Artist Deposits that were paid (tens of thousands), that we went about it with the right avenues, so we didn’t lose any of that money.  If there was a chance we were at risk of losing that money, obviously we would have thought about it and taken different avenues and strategies.  But we were not forwarded the choice to even consider other options.

A couple of the Artist Agencies (that at this time, we can’t name for legal reasons), refused to refund the Artist deposit monies to us due to a former Solicitors Professional Negligence and time lapsed due to contractual obligations, in that he did NOT do as instructed and directed by us within the specified time frames needed, whilst telling us that he did.  This has ultimately led to Artist Refunds not being refunded to us, but instead, allegedly being forfeited by us under contract agreements and supposedly forwarded to the Artists by an agency that is known to be a little ruthless in the past.  

We, along with our current Legal team have requested numerous times to be provided with the proof our former Legal Team had actually sent the relevant documents / communication, that to this day, has continued to go on ignored and hence has caused a flurry of Negative Comments, feedback and lack of time to make alternative and positive decisions for the success and future of Music Is Life Festival.
So, we, (Music Is Life), have NOT pocketed any money as some people would like to think.  $65,000 has gone back to customers via way of refunds (all of which can be verified).  From what we believe, the Artist Deposits have allegedly gone / been forwarded to the Artists we had on the Bill.  

We copped a LOT of flak from a little group / few people (keyboard warriors if you will) that ironically, have NEVER supported us or even bought a ticket to ANY of our festivals (we checked).  We were called things like Scammers, Con Artists, Grubs, Fryer Festival 2.0 etc etc and it has destroyed our Name, our Reputation and any chance of future Business and or Festivals.

At the time Music Is Life came to our decision to announce postponement, government restrictions etc were very much still in place.  It was due to Solicitor Negligence that our Announcement to you all was delayed (emails to Solicitor that prove dates), ultimately made us look like fools as those restrictions ironically began to be lifted.  We had continually contacted and LITERALLY BEGGED for our Legal team to provide us with advice and the info we required.  Ironically, we were consistently being ignored and being told they would call us in either 5mins, 15mins, half an hour etc (numerous emails and Texts to prove) and they NEVER did.  Which is what led us to and forced us to seek alternate Legal advice.  
That legal advice was determined that they believed we had a strong case of Professional Negligence, and that negligence has led to the severe back lash and forfeit of Deposit Monies as well as our director’s significant personal financial loss as well in their fight of this matter to secure and fight to get the Deposit refunds back.  

It seems the Saying, we are all in this together is just that… a saying.  We suggest that anyone that decides to fund a festival from their own pocket, make sure you have the correct terminology and clauses in a contract and TRIPLE check that you do because you, as the festival Organizers / Promoters are the ones that lose massively and so do your loyal clientele NOT the Agencies, and in this case, not some of the Artists.

Music is Life had already refunded some of our clients to the tune of $65,000.00 and since the Pandemic hit in 2020 have been fighting to continue to bring you what we truly believed to be an AWESOME line-up of Aussie Artists to the Central QLD region bringing in hundreds of thousands, maybe Millions of tourist dollars to the Gladstone region by showing what we had to offer.  Music Is Life is a very small team that self-funded this Festival with no expectations.  We had no committees or big groups of volunteers or ANY government grants.  We submitted 2 Grant Applications and were knocked back both times by the Pałaszczuk Government.  However, we believe that Southeast QLD Applications were successful.

There was also gossip that we did not even have a venue secured and that this particular person stated he got this info from his “reliable source”.  This is a total fabrication and Music Is Life can send him the proof of the acknowledgement from the venue stating the cost of the venue etc if they like, so whoever his “reliable Source is”, is a Liar.  We also had numerous conversations with the venue as well as a face to face meeting.  We were also talking with Council which were of no help to us and our calls to the Gladstone local member went ignored.

Above is just the surface of the issues we, Music Is Life has been fighting for over half a year.  We have so much email correspondence, text messages and have requested the phone call logs from our provider to show just how often we communicated to our former legal team in this matter.

Legal fees and trying to keep this Festival afloat during the pandemic have taken their toll on us financially as we have even exhausted all our own private funds in this fight as well.  We were told we had a Professional Negligence case against our former Legal team, but in the end, the fact that it could take 2-4yrs to fight for an outcome would not justify the cost of getting the monies back Vs the cost of the Legal Fees.  A barrister alone costs $3 – $4,000.00 per day (yes… Per Day) Our only form of Further action to take now is to lodge a Formal Complaint / Investigation to the QLD Law Society and Legal Commission against our former Solicitor / Legal Firm.

Therefore, we have been left with NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE and have had to make the heartbreaking decision to place the Company into Liquidation / Deregistration.

As mentioned above, we write this announcement for no other reason but to update you all on this matter.  We understand that it will bring no satisfaction to ticket holders.  

Music Is Life continued to fight until we could fight no more however the Pandemic and the above-mentioned matter has ultimately and finally claimed the Life of another Australian Business and Music Is Life will be no longer as it has become one of MANY small businesses to fall due to the Pandemic.

“IBISWorld has forecast the number of business-related liquidations / bankruptcies to grow by 50.7% in 2021-22, to reach 3,156. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant strain on businesses throughout the year”.

Please note that our website will unfortunately cease to exist in the near future as will our email address.

Kind Regards

Music Is Life Team