The Office Of Fair Trading are making inquiries with the Heatwave Festival organisers about their failure to remove D12 from advertising and promotion for the Brisbane and Sydney shows. The Heatwave promoters first announced D12 would not be playing on the first day of the Adelaide festival (January 12th) stating they had missed their flights. They said they were doing everything possible to get D12 to Australia in time to continue their headline set on the Heatwave tour, however since January 12th they ignored questions from the media and ticket holders when asked if D12 would play in Brisbane or Sydney.
The Heatwave promoters continued to promote the Brisbane and Sydney events through their Facebook page and D12 was still listed as playing at point of sale on the ticketek website. An hour and a half before the gates opened in Brisbane, the organisers released the playing times and D12 was nowhere to be seen. Shortly after, the Heatwave organisers issued a statement on their Facebook page:
HEATWAVE has been working with D12 closely to make the missed shows up to the fans in a more than fair way. Instead of flatout CANCELLING them we are working to a PSA explaining in depth the issues and what is being done to fix.
The major problem here is that the promoters continued to promote a product they knew they could not deliver and chose only to reveal this information 90 minutes before the Brisbane gates opened.
Speaking with Music Feeds today about Heatwave, a Fair Trading spokesperson said:
NSW Fair Trading is currently making inquiries with the festival promoters. Fair Trading has an expectation that while the circumstances may not have been foreseen, any significant change to the performance line-up should quickly be reflected in any advertising and promotion.
The Heatwave Festival organisers still haven’t commented on whether D12 will be playing on the Sydney line-up, which is scheduled for tomorrow at the Enmore Theatre.
By the looks of it, Heatwave Festival may be expected to offer refunds to all ticket holders who bought tickets under the pretence that D12 would play, when the Heatwave promoters knew full well they wouldn’t.
We’ll keep you updated as the info rolls in from The Office Of Fair Trading.
Update 19/01/2012: A Fair Trading Spokesperson said today:
NSW Fair Trading contacted the promoter, ticket distributor and Sydney venue. As a result of Fair Trading’s involvement, the ticket distributor and venue each placed notices on their sites advising of the change of line-up and that refunds will be made available to those ticket holders who elect to not attend the concert. The Enmore Theatre also undertook to have notices posted at the venue.
Should ticket holders be unsuccessful in negotiating a refund for the Sydney dates, they can lodge a complaint at http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au
