{"id":1207,"date":"2025-08-24T14:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2025-08-24T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:01:20","slug":"kkr-backed-music-festival-hit-by-band-boycotts-over-palestinian-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=1207","title":{"rendered":"KKR-backed music festival hit by band boycotts over Palestinian flag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=15df4353-c752-41e5-86e2-324de9ba3085\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Several bands have withdrawn from Victorious, a music festival backed by private equity group KKR, this weekend in Portsmouth after organisers cut the set of an Irish group displaying a Palestinian flag on stage.<\/p>\n<p>The boycott by the bands \u2014 including one of the biggest on the bill for Saturday, The Last Dinner Party \u2014 is the latest setback for Superstruct. <\/p>\n<p>The music festival operator \u2014 which was bought by KKR last year for \u20ac1.3bn \u2014 owns Victorious as well as a number of other similar events across Europe, including Hungary\u2019s Sziget and Germany\u2019s Wacken Open Air. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, some musicians and DJs announced a boycott of S\u00f3nar, Superstruct\u2019s electronic music festival in Barcelona, over investments by KKR that are linked to Israel. <\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Irish folk band The Mary Wallopers were midway through a song when one member of the festival crew went on stage to remove the Palestinian flag. The band \u2014 in footage shown on their Instagram page \u2014 started a chant of \u201cFree Palestine\u201d as the sound was cut.<\/p>\n<p>Many bands have used their stage shows this summer to show support for the Palestinian cause amid Israel\u2019s war with Hamas, including at festivals such as Glastonbury. <\/p>\n<p>The Last Dinner Party said on Instagram that they were \u201coutraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers\u201d and accused the organisers of Victorious, which runs between Saturday and Monday, of \u201cpolitical censorship\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Cliffords and The Academic were other bands that pulled out from the weekend festival.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Victorious said it supported the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage and that its \u201cpolicy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It added: \u201cWe didn\u2019t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached. This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The festival organisers said they were \u201csorry that The Last Dinner Party have decided not to perform\u201d and promised to make \u201ca substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Events put on by Superstruct have been more broadly targeted by pro-Palestinian campaigners objecting to its ownership by KKR, joining other festivals, including SXSW, facing boycotts from artists and fans because of links to companies that operate or invest in Israel. <\/p>\n<p>Alex Mahon, former boss of UK public sector broadcaster Channel 4, is joining Superstruct as chief executive later this year. <\/p>\n<p>The campaigns follow a similar wave of protests against UK book festivals last year, which led to the end of sponsorship deals with Baillie Gifford after the Edinburgh-based fund manager was attacked for its purported links to Israel and the fossil fuel industry.<\/p>\n<p>Superstruct has previously said in a statement that it was \u201chorrified by the scale of suffering and the ongoing crisis\u201d and called \u201cfor an immediate end to the conflict, and for humanitarian aid to reach those suffering in Gaza without delay\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>It added that Superstruct was \u201cindependently run, and makes its own decisions based on what is in the best interests of our fans, artists, partners, and colleagues\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>KKR did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#KKRbacked #music #festival #hit #band #boycotts #Palestinian #flag<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Several bands have withdrawn from Victorious, a music festival backed by private equity group KKR, this weekend in Portsmouth after organisers cut the set of an Irish group displaying a Palestinian flag on stage. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[813,814,812,816,164,810,811,815],"class_list":{"0":"post-1207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-band","9":"tag-boycotts","10":"tag-festival","11":"tag-flag","12":"tag-hit","13":"tag-kkrbacked","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-palestinian"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}