No Nateva This Year?

Update: Looks like it has been confirmed that this was not a joke, the Nateva Festival really has been canceled this year! Sorry to hear it didn’t work out, and I hope they can get things sorted out to return in 2012.

Fact: It’s April Fools Day (did you like our little joke with Jesse Pilgrim earlier today?).

With that in mind, here’s a bit of news that just came in via a press release from the publicist at Nateva:

Nateva Cancels Scheduled Summer Music Festival in Maine

OXFORD, Maine — Due to a series of setbacks and challenges, Nateva Music and Camping Festival has cancelled its scheduled concert weekend at the Oxford Fairgrounds, August 4-7, 2011. Slower than predicted ticket sales and the very crowded summer festival schedule contributed to the festival organizers decision to cancel. Customers who purchased tickets through natevafestival.com will automatically receive refunds to the credit card used at the time of purchase in the amount of the ticket face value and per-ticket fees.

“In the end, it’s all about being able to put forth a first rate event that everyone can be proud of and that our customers can enjoy. We just don’t have the confidence to go forward at this time,” said Frank Chandler, festival founder. “After an epic inaugural year, we have found ourselves struggling at every turn as we have tried to push forward with preparations for this summer.”

Organizers for Nateva hope to return to Maine in the future.

With a nearly full lineup already announced (and moe. having been leaked as a headliner just yesterday) it seems more than a bit odd that this news would come so suddenly…

For a joke, taking down the tickets seems like a pretty extreme measure, then again, here we are linking to their ticket page after not mentioning the festival for a little while… they get credit at least for a little self-inflicted potential loss of a few ticket sales.