A Freakazoid Institution Bites the Mud

It started as a pathetically desperate attempt to create an xian Woodstock, and ends as a pathetically desperate attempt to pretend that more and more young people are rejecting their myths and lies.

Beverly Fortune at the Herald:

Ichthus Ministries, best known for presenting the Ichthus Music Festival in Wilmore (Kentucky), the first and longest-running Christian pop music festival, has ceased operations after 42 years.

SNIP

The unanimous decision by Ichthus' board of directors to close was difficult, made only after exhausting all other possibilities for continuing the ministry, Ichthus said in a prepared statement.

Ichthus attorney Mark Nichols said the organization had faced significant obstacles to maintaining financial stability since 2006 due to bad weather, declining attendance, changes in the festival market and mounting debt.

The festival seemed perennially plagued with rain and thunderstorms.

Funny how nobody ever claimed those muddy clusterfucks were a sign from baby jeebus to give it up already you morons.

A few years ago, the festival moved from late April to mid-June in hopes of better weather. But it lost some of its followers who preferred the spring date, and it never was able to attract the same number of people in June.

"Crowds started declining, most notably six years ago when we had the big mud fest," Nichols said. "That's when a lot of our financial issues started because of the tremendous expense of putting gravel down, and people wanted their money back."

What? Thousands of freakazoids not willing to shell out mere Mammon for the chance to shlep to the wilds of rural Kentucky for a weekend of sweltering in mud and cowshit to prove their devotion to an invisible sky wizard?

A freakazoid "ministry" abandoning its jeebus-given mission for lack of filthy lucre? Surely 40 years of bad music, worse traffic and more trouble than the Wilmore jail could handle was not just all about the money?

Good riddance, Icthus. You won't be missed.