London's Pleasure Gardens goes into administration

A week after the news that Debs Armstrong, the founder and creative director of London's Pleasure Gardens had resigned, the whole project has now been put into administration.

The reclaimed entertainment area in the heart of East London which hosted the BT River of Music and the ill fated Bloc Weekend, has announced on its website, here, the following statement, "It is with great sadness that London Pleasure Gardens Ltd has been placed into administration. We will issue more information within the next few days but would like to thank everyone who has supported us and our vision. The LPG team are working with the administrators to ensure the current situation is dealt with in the best possible way."

The London Pleasure Gardens was an evolving plan to alter the land of an ex-brownfield industrial site in a state of dereliction into the 60,000 sq.m waterside 'festival area'. Over a million pounds was spent on contamination remediation to make it safe for people for the first time in 60 years, however bad weather delayed construction and much like a festival field the site opened with much still to be done to make it achieve it's potential look.

A landform amphitheatre made of grass, benches and structures, street art, meandering walks, wild meadows, installations, structures, lighting, and more had been achieved.

However it would appear that the site did not attract enough footfall to keep the dream alive, ironic since Bloc apparently reached over capacity, and had to be shut down.

Newham Council released a statement on Music Week, (here), saying, "The decision by London Pleasure Gardens Limited to enter into voluntary administration is regrettable but understandable. It is disappointing that the anticipated visitor numbers and revenue from recent planned events have not materialised."

Last week the Four Tet headlined The Secret Sundaze Go Bang! festival which was due to take place at the Pleasure Gardens on the August Bank Holiday decided to switch venue, and other planned events have also moved away from the Gardens in recent weeks.

Debs Armstrong, the ex-creative director, posted on her blog, (here), "If only we'd been allowed to market and program the Games. LPG didn't stand a chance to last through the summer without being able to attract an audience and no Olympic audience materialising after all."

The BBC reported on Friday that London's Pleasure Gardens is one of two exits Olympic spectators are directed through after watching events including boxing, table tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling at the ExCel centre, and last week, traders had complained about poor management of the site and lack of customers.

In her blog Armstrong also alludes to the fact that that whilst some people have been to a festival site and appreciate that sometimes areas are rough around the edges, today's society has grown to expect fully finished, packaged and shiny, plastic wrapped product.

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