JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

With an es­ti­mat­ed $2 mil­lion in tick­et sales promised to be re­fund­ed to pa­trons of the failed One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, the event’s pro­mot­ers are threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion against on­line tick­et­ing agency Is­land eT­ick­ets.

In a state­ment sent to the agency on Thurs­day night, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment ar­gued that tick­et sale pro­ceeds should not be re­fund­ed un­til a com­plete au­dit is con­duct­ed.

“This let­ter serves as a for­mal Cease and De­sist No­tice from the or­gan­is­ers of the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, in­struct­ing you to im­me­di­ate­ly halt all re­fund pro­cess­ing re­lat­ed to our event, un­til a full in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­clud­ed.”

The state­ment al­so claims that Is­land eT­ick­ets’ re­fund pol­i­cy does not align with what oc­curred at the fes­ti­val and should not be en­forced.

“Per your pub­lished Re­fund and Ex­change Pol­i­cy, as found on your of­fi­cial web­site, we high­light the fol­low­ing: If your event is can­celled, we will re­fund the amount you paid for your tick­ets (mi­nus or­der pro­cess­ing, ser­vice and de­liv­ery fees). Venue and tal­ent are sub­ject to change with­out no­tice and are not grounds for a re­fund. Any­thing promised by the pro­mot­er that is un­ful­filled is not guar­an­teed by the sell­er and is not grounds for a re­fund.”

Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment main­tains that the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val was not can­celled and de­clared that “any and all re­fund ac­tiv­i­ty is in di­rect con­flict with your stat­ed pol­i­cy.”

The com­pa­ny has asked Is­land eT­ick­ets to sus­pend all re­funds, sub­mit a writ­ten re­port of any re­funds al­ready processed—in­clud­ing pay­ee de­tails, re­fund amounts, and re­fund rea­sons—and con­firm in writ­ing that no fur­ther re­funds will be is­sued un­til fur­ther no­tice.

“Fail­ure to com­ply with this di­rec­tive may re­sult in le­gal ac­tion and claims for dam­ages aris­ing from any unau­tho­rised or un­jus­ti­fied re­fund dis­burse­ments.”

Fol­low­ing the con­cert’s fail­ure, many tick­et hold­ers re­quest­ed re­funds. Two on­line tick­et­ing plat­forms—Front­line Tick­et­ing and Is­land eT­ick­ets—have com­mit­ted to re­im­burs­ing cus­tomers.

On Wednes­day, Is­land eT­ick­ets’ Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer Matthew Enci­nas said the re­fund process would be­gin to­day and be com­plet­ed with­in five busi­ness days.

In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Enci­nas said the com­pa­ny re­mains com­mit­ted to both pro­mot­ers and pa­trons.

“It’s equal­ly im­por­tant to recog­nise our com­mit­ment to the pro­mot­ers who use our plat­form. When a pro­mot­er runs a pro­fes­sion­al, well-ex­e­cut­ed event, we stand be­hind them just as firm­ly. Our plat­form ex­ists to em­pow­er both pa­trons and pro­mot­ers—so long as both par­ties op­er­ate with in­tegri­ty, we will al­ways have their back. We’re proud to be a lo­cal com­pa­ny that op­er­ates with glob­al stan­dards, and we hope our re­sponse shows that we don’t just process tick­ets—we pro­tect the trust that sur­rounds them,” he said.

The con­cert col­lapsed af­ter head­lin­er Vy­bz Kar­tel pulled out at the last minute, cit­ing a breach of con­tract. His with­draw­al trig­gered a domi­no ef­fect as most of the for­eign acts al­so dropped out.

Kar­tel had been con­tract­ed for a to­tal of US$1.35 mil­lion to per­form. Oth­er for­eign artistes in­clud­ed Malie Donn, Rvss­ian, Siz­zla Kalon­ji, Chron­ic Law, and Moliy. On­ly Chron­ic Law took the stage, per­form­ing along­side lo­cal artistes La­dy La­va, KMC, Iw­er George, Joshua Re­grel­lo, and Ravi B.

On Thurs­day, Odane An­der­son, own­er of Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment, said he feared for his life as he could not meet fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions.

On Tues­day, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin con­firmed that the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (FIB) is prob­ing the source, method, and tim­ing of the US$950,000 pay­ment made to Kar­tel. Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment in­sists the pay­ment was ful­ly above board and does not war­rant po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.