Punters Of Cancelled Maitreya Festival Struggling To Get A Refund

Melbourne’s Maitreya Festival was cancelled a few days before it was due to go ahead after difficulties securing a venue and now punters are struggling to get back their ticket money.

A support group has been set up by fellow festival-goers on Facebook detailing the situation for those desperaetly trying to get their money back from the festival.

According to the group, organisers have not been responding to any requests and when they do are refusing to refund the tickets.

The Music spoke to ticketing agent TryBooking about the situation and they have assured ticket holders that refunds will be given as soon as the organisers have evacuated from the Charlton site where the festival was being set up.

TryBooking, however, could not confirm whether they were legally responsible to issue refunds nor the exact time that refunds would be issued.

“I’m not sure, to be honest, how that all works legally,” they said.

“We are working with them though…we’ll be working closely with them once they’ve made a decision of how they want to go about it.”

The ticketing agent confirmed that the money went into the organiser’s bank account and was not kept in their holding.

A similar situation on a much larger scale occurred with this year’s cancelled Soundwave. Eventually, it was found that ticketing company Eventopia were responsible for issuing refunds not the organiser AJ Maddah.

According to the Maitreya support Facebook page, Consumer Affairs Victoria is now talking to Victoria Police, “to ascertain if the actions of the organiser are considered fraudulent and if a criminal investigation needs to take place”. They are encouraging all those who haven’t received a refund to submit a complaint to Consumer Affairs Victoria.

It looks like it’s not just ticket holders though that are out of pocket. There are also stories of food and market vendors losing their deposits. One man commented that his wife paid $3000 to set up a stall at the festival.