The London music promotions and entertainment group owned by Vince Power, the Waterford-born impresario, has gone into administration.

Shipleys accountants were appointed administrators to Vince Power Music Group Limited on January 26th, according to company records.

The British equivalent of an examinership gives the company protection from its debts for a period.

According to the VPMG website, which describes the owner as ‘The Godfather of Gigs’, “the company is currently in the process of opening a portfolio of exciting new venues.”

The group’s most recent accounts, for 2007, show a pre-tax loss of £857,000 (€975,000) on a turnover of £8.24 million.

A native of Kilmacthomas, Mr Power, 63, is better known as the founder of the Mean Fiddler group, which promoted the Fleadh, Reading and Leeds music festivals. After taking it public, he sold his stake to Denis Desmond and Live Nation for £38m in 2005.

Though the father-of-eight personally made €19.1m from the deal, “It was the saddest day of my life. All of a sudden there was money in the bank, but no one is calling you,” he said earlier this month while continuing to work on his autobiography.

He quickly got back into business – coupling it with his charity work, for which he was awarded a CBE three years ago – and now has nine venues restaurant, music and theatre venues, including the Pigalle Club in London (where he lives), and is behind the International Festival of Benicassim in Spain, his first ‘comeback’ project.

With ‘the new Europe’ in his sights (markets like Lithuania), the UK/Ireland ‘non-compete’ clause in the Mean Fiddler sale contract has now expired, and he recently refused to rule out staging another festival in Tramore despite losing an estimated IR£500,000 on the Fleadh Mór in 1993. He’s a major director of Tramore Racecourse where the event, headlined by Bob Dylan, was staged.