Forever Young: Fans rush to save 80s music festival with crowdfunding effort

The 1980s themed outdoor music jamboree has been a favourite for retro lovers since the first gig in 2019 at Palmerstown House, Co Kildare.

Just over a third of the €1 million needed to guarantee the staging of next year’s festival has been raised so far, with 1,000 shares at €1,000 each on sale.

The three day annual festival has brought an impressive number of acts to Ireland, including The Human League, Holly Johnson, Marti Pellow, Squeeze, OMD, Kim Wilde, ABC, Billy Ocean, Bonnie Tyler, Bucks Fizz, Soul II Soul, Nik Kershaw and Tony Hadley, as well as local talent such as The Undertones, The Hothouse Flowers, Cry Before Dawn, In Tua Nua, Brian Downey and Andrew Stone.

But this year’s festival in July was marred by torrential rain, which resulted in day ticket holders due to attend on Saturday being told they could not be admitted.

“There are people that are due ticket refunds and that’s part of the issue we need to sort out from this year before we can move forward,” Forever Young founder Dr Sharon Alston said.

“So, that’s why we are releasing equity in the company in return for investment in the company so we can move forward.”

Sharon admits that the situation that unfolded in July was hard to swallow and organisers faced a “horrible situation”.

“Basically, the campers came in on the Friday and it ran as normal, it was a little bit wet,” she explains. “But later on, Friday night and on Saturday morning, we got over six times the forecasted rain, and we worked to try and keep the site usable for the amount of people we were expecting.

“But the safety officer wanted to restrict the numbers of the camping ticket holders that were already there, so they could enjoy the gig on the Saturday – but he didn’t want other people into the event to keep the numbers down due to the conditions.

“That was a horrific thing to do, as people were on their way to the event. It was a horrible situation to deal with and it created an awful lot of upset, but there was nothing we could do about it.”

Sharron explains that following the event they then faced an insurance problem.

“There are levels of insurance, and we didn’t realise that decreasing the numbers that were on our site was not covered in our policy,” she explains. “It would have been an extra policy add-on that we hadn’t come across before, so sadly we weren’t insured for the losses — so the losses hit us very hard. We now have going forward a very different insurance policy with all the whistles and bells.”

Sharon intends to hold on to 51 per cent of the company — the other 49 per cent will belong to the crowdfunded shareholders — with her profits going to fund animal welfare charities.

“As soon as we have paid our losses for this year, there should be dividends from the 2025 event and onwards for the shareholders,” she points out.

Sharon hopes to have raised the necessary money by the end of January,

“We’ve built a fantastic brand for putting on amazing artists and we just got hit hard this year. We aim to pay the investors a high return on their investment, plus the shares will go up in value.”