Can you explain what rights I and thousands of other fans have after the organisers of a K-pop/K-hip-hop festival in Paris completely changed the lineup?
After a successful London concert last year, the promoter MIK festival announced it would run a two-day event in Paris on 18-19 February this year, complete with a list of artists playing on each day. I and loads of others bought tickets and booked hotels etc.
Then, out of the blue, in January, allegedly as a result of fan demand, MIK announced that the lineup had been completely changed, reassigning artists among the two days to provide a K-pop and K-hip-hop split. It means I, and lots of others, have tickets for a day that we are not interested in attending, and would never have bought had these lineups been announced from the start.
The organisation is now refusing to allow refunds, and swaps of tickets have only been allowed after the purchase of a new ticket for the preferred day, and providing the new order contains the same number of tickets as the original. This entails an extra cost for some ticketholders, as the cheapest seats are no longer available.
The organisation has not provided a real reason for the revised lineup, only mentioning that it was fan-requested, without any proof. It claims it made the change after carrying out a poll of fans via social media. In terms of the financial loss, me and my friend are looking at losing £300 each in tickets, plus all the travel arrangements. MIK is ignoring us. What would you do?
EP, London
I think it’s rather telling that MIK festival has refused to discuss or engage with either you or the Guardian over this complaint.
Despite repeated emails and other attempts to contact it on Twitter, the company has not responded, despite tweeting marketing nonsense endlessly.
I imagine it would say that you bought a ticket to the event, not for a specific act, and that it reserves the right to change the lineup as required.
It’s not uncommon for festival organisers to have to change line-ups for various reasons – band members break legs etc. But in this case it appears to be a complete change to the lineup.
The Consumer Rights Act states that items or services must be as described, which in my opinion clearly has not happened in this case. I note that there are lots of other fans also complaining about this.
If you are unable to swap or sell the tickets and you are still out of pocket, there is nothing to stop you bringing a small claims action against MIK festival, which is based in the UK. It’s all online now, although finding an address for the company beyond what is at Companies House may be problematic.
The problem is that even if you were to get a judgment in your favour, there is no guarantee that you will be able to get the company to pay up, as you could if it were a business with established premises. A better bet might be to take it up with your bank card provider. Explain what happened and ask for a chargeback/section 75 claim.
Anyone thinking of buying tickets from MIK festival in the future, take note.
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