SLAYER is suing the organizers of Iceland’s Secret Solstice music festival, claiming it hasn’t been paid in full for appearing at last year’s event, RÚV (the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service) reports. The band says it is still owed around $134,000 (16 million Icelandic króna).
Local media has reported that a significant number of people and companies have not been paid for their work at Solstice Productions, which has handled Secret Solstice‘s operations.
Earlier this year, feminist rap collective REYKJAVÍKURDÆTUR said that it also hadn’t been paid for its performance at the 2018 Secret Solstice, according to Iceland Review.
Víkingur Heiðar Arnórsson, the new manager of the festival, later said that while the festival has struggled financially, it has plans to pay the remaining artists they owe money in due time.
A new company, Live Events, has been founded to run Secret Solstice. The company is registered to Guðmundur Hreiðarsson Viborg, an economist who resides in the Canary Islands. Guðmundur initially explained to Vísir that paying old debts was the job of the old managers.
SLAYER‘s lawyer, Jón Gunnar Ásbjörnsson, reportedly wrote a letter to the City of Reykjavík about the matter, stating, among other things, that in addition to not having paid the aforementioned claim, the organizers of the festival retained 20 percent of the band’s income to pay withholding tax to the tax authorities.
According to Bjarni Brynjólfsson, information officer of the City of Reykjavík, the matter is under review and will be discussed in the City Council next week.
