HONG KONG (CelebrityAccess) — Magnetic Asia on Friday announced that in the face of a growing political crisis in Hong Kong, they have made the decision to cancel the Clockenflap music festival.
The 60,000-capacity festival, which featured headliners Mumford and Sons, Babymetal, Halsey, Metronomy, was scheduled to take place from Nov. 22 to 24 at Hong Kong’s Central Harbourfront Event Space
While other festivals, including Live Nation’s Rolling Loud festival, have backed away from planned events in Hong Kong this year amid pro-democracy protests, Magnetic Asia had maintained that Clockenflap would proceed as planned.
However, in a statement issued on Friday, Magnetic Asia said: “Due to the escalation of the crisis this week, and therefore the uncertainty this creates for the coming weeks, Clockenflap 2019 will be cancelled.”
“Until this week, we were fully committed to delivering the festival. Unfortunately, the situation has now made this impossible.”
Hong Kong has been riven by pro-democracy protests that started in May over a controversial extradition treaty with China. While the treaty has since been withdrawn, the protests have expanded with demonstrators calling for a wider range of objectives, including the release and exoneration of arrested protesters and an independent review into police handling of the protests.
This week, protestors were besieged by police and security forces on campuses around with media reporting at least one death reported after a man was struck by flying debris.
