As you might have heard by now, the festival I’ve been working on with Beats N Roots was post-poned - and much is to be said about that. I’m taking the time today to explain the situation I was in that led me to cancel my event and stop working with Beats N Roots (BNR). 

On September 8th, I finally got the full picture of our finances, where I discovered existing debt and upcoming debt if we would have gone through with the festival. I could not stand the idea of being lied to about the state of finances of the project I was working on, and the prospect of not paying all the artists and people who would have worked for us was inconceivable. As coordinator of the festival, I supported the VK and BNR to understand the reality of the mental state of the person managing the finances, the reality of the state of our finances, and the necessity to cancel the event. The fate of the Bru·X·elles Festival is now in the hands of BNR.

I send my deepest apologies to all the artists who applied at the festival and who were selected, the partners who trusted us, the institutional partners who saw the potential and the importance of this project and especially to my team (production, technical, security) who brought on your trust and your valuable time. Sorry for not being able to follow through with this project in this context. 

I joined this project because of the values it defended, because of the freedom to manage my team, the possibility to create a platform for the mutual empowerment of FINTA* people, and the opportunity to mobilise a sector around these instrumental topics.

All of these are things I’ll continue to fight for, I’ll just find a better context to do so. All the content I have created for the festival will exist outside of it, I will continue on working on gender dynamics, security&safety, and the overall norms burdening the music sector.