28 Aug 2026
With a week to go before St Albans’ planned Sound Bites festival was due to take place, many potential punters are still out of pocket.
The new festival was launched in the wake of Tom Kerridge’s popular Pub in the Park (pictured), which hosted its final event in Verulamium Park last year, and was expected to take place in St Albans from September 4-6.
Early bird tickets were sold immediately after Pub in the Park, but Verulamium Park owners SADC were never approached about using the site, leaving Sound Bites without a venue.
Earlier this summer Sound Bites events scheduled for elsewhere in the country – including Tunbridge Wells and Reigate – were cancelled. Customers and traders complained on social media that they had not received any refunds and Sound Bites were not responding to email.
Then FIXR, the Sound Bites ticketing platform, confirmed that St Albans would also not be happening, but they would not be refunding customers for their tickets.
They said: “Under our agreement, Sound Bites is responsible for refunding ticket buyers and is required to place FIXR in funds so that we can process these payments back to you. Our terms and conditions make clear that, in the event of cancellation, Sound Bites is the party liable for refunds to ticket buyers.
“FIXR has complied with its contractual obligations by paying the ticket sale proceeds to Sound Bites. However, despite our repeated requests, and in breach of its contractual obligations to FIXR, Sound Bites has failed to return the funds required for us to process refunds and has advised that they are currently unable to do so.”
Now another sales platform, Ticketek, has also revealed there would be a delay in paying refunds.
They told customers: “The reason for the delay is that Sound Bites has not provided the key information required to process the refunds. We are chasing a response and hope to action your refund as soon as possible once this information is received.”
A St Albans customer, who asked to remain anonymous, summed up his feelings about the event: “Pub in the Park was a brilliant event that I had attended for a number of years, so when Sound Bites was announced as its replacement I was genuinely excited.
“I had hoped it might build on what Pub in the Park had done well, perhaps with some bigger acts and additional stages. Unfortunately, Sound Bites seems to have been shambolic from the outset.
“What concerns me most is whether there was ever a realistic and properly developed plan for the St Albans event. Tickets were being sold for months, yet we subsequently discovered that the organisers had not secured Verulamium Park and, according to the council, had not even approached them about holding the event there.
“That becomes even more concerning when viewed alongside what happened elsewhere. Tunbridge Wells was cancelled at extremely short notice, reportedly with some performers only finding out at the last minute, while the Reigate event was cancelled after the council said the organiser had failed to satisfy the conditions required for the event to go ahead safely.
“As a ticket holder, I then requested a refund for St Albans. Ticketek has now written to me to say the refund is being delayed because Sound Bites has not provided them with the information required to process it, and that they are still chasing the organiser for a response.
“I appreciate that festivals can be cancelled and businesses can run into difficulties. What is much harder to understand is how tickets could continue to be sold for an event when something as fundamental as the venue apparently hadn’t been secured.
“At this point I think ticket holders deserve a proper explanation of what happened, when the organisers knew there were problems, and why people are still waiting for refunds.”
Sound Bites Events Ltd, the trading name for the festival, remains active at Companies House, but has yet to file any accounts.
