Between October 2008 and January 2009 a keystroke logger gathered every keystroke made on SWF's computer.  This computer was belonged to J, and the keystroke logger allowed the installer to hack into SWF files, Myspace Accounts, J's personal email accounts...you name it.

She found the bug and disabled it.  By then it was too late.

The person who installed the keystroke logger had stolen massive amounts of data from her files, easily done, as all they needed was her passwords to have immediate access to anything on her hard drive, and all her accounts.

An imposter site was set up on Myspace while this was going on, which we knew nothing about for a long time.  When we were alerted to it, we challenged the operator of the site - at this point J became a target for malicious rumour and personal violence. 

We believe that a lot has been done in our name of which we have no knowledge, and this is because we are finding that people we respect seem to think we have done something to damage them.

All we can say is this.

We have been hacked, Two and a half years worth of SWF work has been stolen and appropriated.  This worker is now claiming Sonic World Festival as his own.

On 29th July, 2008, less than ten days after our successful festival at Lumb Farm, our name was bought out from under us by last minute SWF worker we naively trusted. This ex- worker is a specialist in Information Technology.  Despite inventing it and setting it up, J has never owned Sonic World Festival as a company because, As a disabled Lone Parent of a disabled child - she cannot own or direct a company.  Nor can she receive or distribute funds.  All funding issues for SWF2008 were dealt with by someone else.  This year, the funding will be organised  by SteveDog and Harvey.


Sonic World Festivals stand by their record.

Last year we worked our nuts off to provide a decent festival for the musicians, the customers, and to take care of the needs of the people who gave their time and energy to work for us.  For example:-

A quote from The amazing Marshalling team from Salutation MCC -

"So...how good was the weekend? Twelve odd bands and I didn't get to see more than 10 minutes, but who cares...I thought the weekend was ace! We were there to work as security / marshalls for the Sonic World Festival organised by Jane (Jules), one time dancer for Hawkwind and Dr Hasbeen one time space rock musician...only jesting...the good Dr Martin still knows how to knock out space rock :) Duties were simple and standard and this time we had a decent sized crew of around 16 people including 6 "guest" workers, Dave Cartwright included. Good to see Dave again even if he only wears t-shirts that match his bike in colour...marmalade :)

Tracey was first on site, arriving on the Thursday, while I arrived with Music Man Chris around mid day Friday, closely followed by Naz. We set up the main gate checkpoint and campsite checkpoint and went to work, helped by the timely and welcome delivery of 3 crates of ale, courtesy of Jane and the good Doctor Martin.

The organisers we very good to us and kept spirits high in the eye of the storm (well the very fierce wind) by throwing crates of ale at us throughout the day. Jane also spent some considerable time during the previous few days, knocking up a fair amount of scran for us - and it went down well. Cheers for that effort...much appreciated. Thanks also to Leeds Suzie and Ammo Amadeus for the improvised site kitchen, aka small caravan:) "

Here's the deal.

We lost everything, J particularly took a battering.  God willing, we will put on the festival again this year, and make it good for the artists, and for the people who come to see these good people play.
If we fail, then we will have given it 100% when we rightfully had nothing left to give.  We cant say fairer than that.

In the meantime, to anyone who feels we have wronged them, we urge you to examine the facts. 

1.  Our name was bought out from under us before the ink on the reviews was dry by someone who did not arrive in our ranks until the month of the festival.
2.  Our customers, musicians and workers were happy with their experience, giving, and getting, great reviews.
3.  We set up the ethos and stood by it, even in the face of abuse and harassment.
No one made a penny from the artists, though some tried, and they were prevented by SWF from doing so.

Some people who were very vocal about the lack of effort of some workers, the attempts to illegally obtain and merchandise non-consensual recordings of the festival have gone their own way and we wish them luck.  Many people on forums were witness to those people and look unfavourably upon the moral U turns which some have felt compelled to take.

We apologise if we have lost and had to re-add you to our myspace, again, this is due to our computers and sites being hacked.  Our organization has had to be rebuilt from the ground up, and this has been a very difficult task.

We thank everyone for their good wishes, and pledge to do our utmost to bring a good festival to you. We will continue to support those who share our ethos and belief in a better world with fair trade and equality.  We would prefer to make it a success, but if we must die on the battlefield, we will have gone down fighting.

Sonic World Festival - The Original Sonic World Festival, 4/5th September, 2009
Lumb Farm, Ripley, Derbyshire.

www.myspace.com/sonicworldfestivals
www.sonicworldfestival.co.uk
www.myspace.com/harveybainbridgemusic

Thankyou all for walking this walk with us. We hope to see you and serve you well this September at Lumb Farm.