The organisers behind one of Glasgow’s biggest music festivals say cancelling this year’s event has been the darkest moment of their careers.
Dave Clarke and Mark McKechnie, founders of the Riverside Music Festival, had to cancel this year’s event due to lower-than-expected ticket sales, increased costs and what they called an over-saturated event landscape.
The electronic music festival was due to take place over Saturday and Sunday, May 25 and 26, and would have seen appearances from the likes of LF SYSTEM, Slam, and Eliza Rose.
“We were embarrassed,” David told the Glasgow Times.
He added: “Your pride takes a bit of a dent.
“We’ve been doing promoting between us for about 30 years, and we’ve never had to cancel anything before.
“It was the darkest moment of our career.”
Despite the heartbreaking decision, the pair know they made the right move.
Dave said: “The economy has been in a terrible state. The last thing we wanted to do was leave the people of Glasgow out of pocket.”
While Mark reinstated: “We had to make a decision, and I think it was the responsible one.”
The pair have rescheduled the festival for next May – and they say it will be the best and biggest yet.
Dave said: “We’ve rescheduled this year’s festival to May of next year and a lot of people were nice enough to just roll their tickets over, without even knowing what the line-up will be.
“We felt a lot of support from people after that and it’s giving us the courage to come back bigger and better next year.”
Ahead of next year’s festival, Dave and Mark have decided to put on a one-day event to make sure the people of Glasgow can still have a boogie before the summer ends.
The event – which is in collaboration with Electric Frog - will take place on August 31 at Riverside and will feature some of the biggest names in the DJ game, as well as up-and-coming talent.
The day will see sets from the likes of Skin on Skin, Kettama, La La, Hayley Zalassi, and Dija.
And attendees are certainly in for a treat when they see the unique stage set-up at the one-stage event.
Mark said: “We’ve redesigned the stage for this event to change things up a little bit.
“It moves away from the traditional stage and is more of a DIY structure.
“It will look fairly unique, and I don’t think there is one of them that exists already.”
David added: “There will be a huge screen at the back and some scaffolding where the audience can watch the artist from behind.
“It’s been really fun doing something different, aesthetically speaking.”
There will also be an electronic music event run by Manchester company Teletech on September 1 at the same venue, which is co-promoted by Dave and Mark.
With the Saturday event taking place at the end of August and the darker nights coming, the pair are certainly making use of some fun lighting.
Dave teased: “We’re going to be using beams and strips of strobes, and we are also going to light up the Riverside Museum because it is an iconic backdrop for a dancefloor.”
Mark added: “We’re looking forward to it.”
Tickets are still available for the upcoming event on Saturday and can be purchased HERE
For more information on the Riverside Music Festival 2025, click HERE
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article