In its sixteen years of existence, the Positivus Festival had never faced such immense challenges as it did yesterday, when news of widespread IT disruptions and the resulting issues in the operations of international airports, banks, and online media swept across the globe. Unfortunately, these global IT problems caused unexpected changes to the festival’s program. The grand show of Saturday’s main artist, Jason Derulo, will take place tonight in Lucavsala as planned, but unfortunately, the concerts of Offset and Nothing But Thieves have been canceled.

Until late last night, we were searching for a charter flight to bring Offset from London to Riga. As soon as it became clear that it would not be possible for him to fly on Friday with a special flight, we searched until late into the night for possibilities to fly on Saturday. The technical personnel of the artists were already in the festival area yesterday and ready for the concert. However, the artist himself was so worried about his ability to get back to America that they decided to cancel the show.

This is very painful news for us, because usually in similar situations, artists do everything possible to find any possible ways to reach the destination and avoid canceling the performance. You surely remember the case with Megan Thee Stallion two years ago. We have experienced many cases where the audience did not even notice the efforts required to get the artists to the festival.

There will also be changes in today’s program. Benjamin Clementine will perform later, as Nothing But Thieves, unfortunately, cannot make it to Riga. The band needed to transport a large amount of luggage, which the airports could not handle due to yesterday’s global IT problems and were transporting passengers without their luggage. It is not possible to transport such an amount of luggage to Latvia with special contract flights. The band issued a heartfelt statement, and we hope that the band will be able to perform in Riga soon.

Nothing But Thieves: “Hello Latvia. Unfortunately, due to travel issues caused by yesterday’s global IT outage, we won’t be able to play our show today at Positivus Festival. We’ve tried every option available to make alternative arrangements to get to you, but there simply just isn’t a way to make it in time. We were incredibly excited to play for our Latvian fans – to say we are gutted is an understatement. If you’re there make sure you enjoy all the other music on offer, and hopefully we’ll be able to come back to Latvia soon for a show.”

There are no planned changes to the program on the Lielvārde stage, and fortunately, all the artists have arrived in Riga. We are confident that today’s program will provide unforgettable emotions – the festival’s program includes many concerts that are each worthy of a festival on their own. We invite Friday’s festival ticket holders to attend the festival today as well and hope that with the conclusion of tonight’s grand concert, we will quickly forget the challenges we and you have faced in these days.