It’s being reported today that humongous DJ booking agency Elastic Artists – who represent Dixon, Maxi Soundsystem, Kiwi and Marcus Marr amongst others – are on the verge of going bust and have recently been withholding payments to their artists in order to try and delay this as much as possible.

This was brought to our attention by the Manchester based collective Levelz who claim that Elastic Artists owe them a load of month for a few months worth of gigs. Their solution to this problem was to raise awareness of the situation by posting the following video to Facebook, in which they stage (what can only be assumed is) a mock kidnapping of an Elastic Artists creative director (Mr Rich Reason). Levelz then proceed to torture him in an attempt to get the money that is owed them.

Fair enough I suppose.

https://www.facebook.com/Levelzmcr/videos/647894838686962/

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Obviously this is a bit of an extreme reaction but if someone owes you money – especially in the run up to Christmas – then you’re gonna be pissed off, especially if there doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any way of them ever paying it back to you.

Elastic Artists actually released the following statement in a letter last week to their artists in which they addressed these issues. The news wasn’t too good though and they basically said they would be withholding payment to their artists and they haven’t got a clue how they’re going to figure it out:

The company is currently experiencing financial difficulties which have meant we are unable to release monies to clients for shows that have already taken place.

We are exploring options to restore the company’s liquidity and to transfer the ownership of the business to a new team.

None of Elastic Artists’ existing team of agents nor the company’s management are in any way implicated in the current problems, and none were privy to the underlying options until the past few days.

Word on the ground is that Elastic screwed up after money mismanagement at the top and a big investment into new office space, which didn’t convert into more profit.

Considering Elastic Artists represent over 150 artists from all over the world and have organised over 5000 events this year, there are probably going to be a lot of unhappy people out there with this news. This can be illustrated by some of the big name DJs taking to social media to voice their disdain for the company’s current situation:

Excuse me @elasticartists can your accounts department please reply to my emails and pay me the money I am owed. Thank you.

— Alexander Nut (@AlexanderNut) November 23, 2015

I REALLY hope @elasticartists will pay all the hard working artists, myself included, & everyone else in the team. https://t.co/iw1vHUpaC4

— FATIMA RULLGARDINA VÅFFELDOTTER LÅNGSTRUMP (@QUEENFATIMA) November 24, 2015

@DannyDaze @QUEENFATIMA @elasticartists I'm one of them. Can't believe it. Looking like I'm screwed.

— Maxxi Soundsystem (@MaxxiSndSystm) November 26, 2015

https://twitter.com/kiwi_ldn/status/669889589331533824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Again, this clearly isn’t good news for anyone involved. We can only hope that whoever is in charge of Elastic Artists somehow manages to sort this out so that everyone they owe money to gets paid, but usually in these situations it’s a case of one company shutting up shop and screwing over everyone they owe money too and them not being able to do anything about it. Bad news on December 1st, but maybe not as bad as some of the stuff that made Christmas 2014 so shit.