re the milton keynes official reply: another thing to take into consideration is that a shitload of events ranging from sports to theater plays have been canceled, and ticketmaster and the other companies you purchase tickets through in the UK have had to dish out an incredible amount of money that they’d already invested in other stuff and might not have actually had on their hands when things crashed, which would’ve put a whole new mechanism in motion whose entire purpose is to +
momentarily save said companies’ asses, which would further complicate promoters’ lives. this is what’s happening here in italy, and working in a booking agency myself i’ve seen firsthand just how huge a mess this is for agents and promoters. until you know for sure there is no possibility for a rescheduling whatsoever, you can’t speak up because of the new guidelines, and if you do let people know you’re (rightfully) worried you’re pretty much left to fend for yourself as ticketing companies have pretty much cut all communications due to the immense amount of people reaching out to them all the time and their inability to hand out everyone’s money right away. of course i speak from an italian POV, as we haven’t been able to get in touch with our branch of ticketmaster in over a month. no one has. to make the situation even better, here in italy the situation is dire enough you can only get a refund voucher if your show is straight up canceled and not postponed. if you can’t make it to the new show you’re not entitled to any compensation. in light of all of this and more i won’t bore you with, i think as of right now milton keynes just can’t really say anything but this for their own sake, as till they have all information if a spark causes a fire they won’t have the means to put it out at all. they’re trying to contain the damage till they know how to act, which is what a lot of agencies have to do right now, so i wouldn’t trust their words as if my life depended on it. download, tomorrowland, burning man and so on have all been postponed or canceled, even festivals taking place in july or august. as much as i wanna hope they’ll play this june, i really don’t think they will
Oh wow. This is nicely said. Thank you very, very much for all this, Zero. I mean, I honestly don’t work in the show business industry myself so I really don’t know how it worked, but I was assuming most companies were trying to put profits and just money in general over the general public’s weaknesses, worry over the state of their country or own lives and just general safety. They’re doing it A LOT over here in America and it is tragic to see.
Ticketmaster changed up their policy over in America just recently to the same, exact thing and people are basically furious. Granted, I think you can call up your card company and be like, “Hey, I did not get what I asked for. I need my money back.” and most card companies would side with their customer and give back their money and in turn, that looks bad on the company that issued the tickets. I saw there are people too that are calling for, like, a class action lawsuit, or saying it is worthy of one, against Ticketmaster as well for just that. So crazy.
And, it definitely does depend on if the coronavirus curve does flatten for countries as well in my opinion. It’s starting to over here and some states are talking about opening back up actually even they shouldn’t yet. If it does, life can get back to normal faster. It’s just… I don’t think any country should allow any mass gatherings of mass proportions like that until at least the fall at the very earliest when you know it’s basically safe.
For MK, I didn’t necessarily believe it 100%. I was just astonished they wanted to go ahead with the shows in the first place. I see their reasons for wanting to continue to do it, but it’s just… not safe. Personally, I do believe My Chem is basically gonna postpone those shows for a myriad of reasons too, but safety for themselves and their fans should be the #1 reason. If you’re going to the show(s) at all, I’m sorry. Hope you’re staying out there in Italy, Zero! And, thank you for taking the time to type all this!
