MORE than £6,000 has been raised through a community crowdfunding campaign to support traders, freelancers and crew members left out of pocket after the collapse of the company behind Cornwall’s Morvala Festival.

The fundraiser was launched after Gracenote Promotions Ltd, the company behind the arts festival held at the Mount Edgcumbe estate in June, announced it had begun the process of entering liquidation after becoming insolvent.

Dozens of performers, suppliers, contractors and crew members are understood to have been left unpaid, with campaigners saying the money raised will provide hardship support for local freelancers, sole traders and small independent businesses affected by the collapse.

Kathleen Rixon, who organised the Crowdfunder, said the aim was not to replace the money people had lost, but to show the community valued their work.

She said: “The purpose isn’t necessarily to resolve what everyone’s lost, that would be impossible, so it’s more of a platform to show solidarity in the community. It’s to show that the local people who worked all those hours are valued for their work and how much people enjoyed the event.

“They pulled off the show, the show was incredible and loads of people couldn’t wait for the next one, so for this all to happen is just devastating really.”

Among those affected was Jacob McTighe, Morvala’s technical production manager, who said he and his partner had personally lost around £13,000 after working to deliver the festival.

“Personally, I’ve missed out on about £9,500, and my partner £3,500,” he said. “She did the crew catering and I did a lot of the artist advancing, trying to pull the show together within the six-week period before the show happened.

“I put a lot of time and effort into trying to make the show happen and didn’t receive any remuneration for that.”

Mr McTighe said he was “absolutely gutted” after believing Morvala had the potential to become a long-running event.

In a statement, Gracenote Promotions Ltd director Jon Stafford said the company had taken professional advice before concluding there was “no responsible alternative” but to begin liquidation.

He said: “This is not a decision we have chosen to make. We have been left with no other option.

“The financial position of the company is completely unrecoverable, and there is no responsible or realistic course of action that would allow the business to continue trading.”

Mr Stafford said the company would fully cooperate with the appointed insolvency practitioner and that all known creditors would be contacted as part of the formal process.

“We know many of you placed your trust in us,” he said. “Many of you committed months of work, invested your own time and resources, supported us through an incredibly ambitious project and believed in the vision we were trying to create.

“The fact that so many of you are now facing financial loss is something that weighs incredibly heavily on us.”

The collapse has also resulted in the cancellation of the planned Kernowfornia Festival in Looe this September.