Perth Fringe Festival artists among creditors owed over $650,000 after promoter collapse

Artists and performers owed thousands of dollars after the collapse of Western Australian event promoter JumpClimb and the Noodle Palace venue at Perth’s Elizabeth Quayhave been told they are unlikely to ever be paid.

The management agency, who were responsible for booking acts at the wildly popular Perth Fringe Festival and running other large-scale festival events, such as the Beaufort Street, BeauVine Food and Wine and Kegs by the Key festivals, went into liquidation in May.

A report from liquidators said there were "limited assets" in all companies, with liquidator Bob Jacobs advising “at this stage, I consider that there is unlikely to be a return to unsecured creditors.

The report found unsecured creditors for Noodle Palace were owed a total of $672,000 while the amount JumpClimb estimated it could not pay back was $610,600.

While the Perth Fringe Festival books most performers directly, third-party management firms like JumpClimb are also allowed to book acts.

Ticket sales are paid to the management firms, who are then supposed to pay the performers.

The liquidator's report cited Noodle Palace's spiralling debts in part from the last festival when they entered into a contract with the City of Swan to run ‘Midlandia’, a comedy festival in Perth's east, about 30-minutes' drive from the city centre.

The report stated “I am advised that this event made losses of around $250,000.”

JumpClimb Pty Ltd also received a garnishee notice from the Australian Tax Office for $296,600 of unpaid BAS and superannuation guarantee charges.

After this the directors restructured the company, setting up three other firms and transferring large sums between them in an apparent bid to remain solvent.

The liquidator noted JumpClimb appeared to cease trading around October 2017. Perth's Fringe Festival ran in January and February this year.

Perth Fringe Festival organisers in May announced they would give back $85,000 they made from ticket sales so artists could be paid some of the money owed.

Fringe Chief Executive Marcus Canning said the festival had also offered to purchase debt from affected artists so it could represent them in the liquidation, and ticketing changes were being implemented for next year's event.

Canning advised "Fringe World has changed the mechanics of how ticket sales are paid out through the festival ticketing system to independent companies, venues, arts organisations and artists to better protect artists working direct with independent companies.”

The report also found while the company's external bookkeeper provided access to accounting software, the computers handed to the liquidator had been wiped of all records.

Jacobs added “following my discovery that the computers used by the directors had been wiped prior to handing them back to me, … I also took steps to seize control of the Company's iiNet email and DropBox accounts.”

He said he was satisfied the company had kept adequate records but added “my investigations are continuing as to why the directors deleted data from the computers prior to providing them to me.” Jacobs' preliminary report found Noodle Palace had been trading while insolvent, concluding “as early as November 2017, the directors were warned of the company's financial distress by its bookkeeper and a supplier outlined that continuing to trade whilst insolvent was a breach of directors' duties."

Images: Fringe Central at the Perth Cultural Centre (top) and the former Noodle Palace at Elizbateh Quay (below).