A petition has been set up by gig-goers who attended the various concerts at last weekend’s various concerts at Finsbury Park. The call for refunds and explanations has been sounded after multiple reports of ‘shambolic’ organisation.
@FRfestivals How do I go about getting a refund for Friday's monstrosity at Finsbury Park? The worst event I've ever been to – and that's no fault of @liamgallagher . The organisation from your company was just terrible, and the sound system was nonexistent. You're conning people pic.twitter.com/xNyi1xjpsg
— Joe (@JoeSki7) July 2, 2018
According to fans who paid to see Liam Gallagher and Queens of the Stone Age- on July 29 and July 1 respectively- there were excessive amounts of organisational issues, including long queues for both bars and toilets, as well as sound quality issues, and overcrowding. Many fans reported that they felt ‘unsafe’ in the concert environment, missing entire sets from artists as they lined up for hydration on two of the hottest days of the year in the UK.
@seetickets I purchased tickets for #qotsa at #Finsburypark and would like to know how to get a refund. Absolutely shambolic organisation from @FRfestivals meant I barely saw or heard anything. The queues were ludicrous and the crowds were dangerous and something needs to be done
— Natalie Harris (@ChatterlyBarris) July 1, 2018
Absolute shambles today. I’ve never experienced such a poorly run festival. That’s the first and last time I’ll be attending one of your events. #FinsburyPark
— Tim Callcott (@Tim1989Callcott) June 30, 2018
The petition has been drawn up now to demand that the managing directors of Festival Rebublic, and Melvin Benn, issues refunds to people who attended the events.
Seena Shah who set up the petition described the gigs as “a terrible and frightening experience.”
She said: “This petition is for anyone who attended the Liam Gallagher or Queen of the Stone Ages Concerts in Finsbury Park on 29 or 30 June, who would have found queues that were far beyond acceptable for the bars, water fountains, and toilets; overcrowding and dangerous crowd management; extremely poor sound quality.”
“Festival Republic are the organisers of these concerts and are ultimately responsible for ensuring the concerts deliver what was advertised, attendees’ safety and welfare. However, it was clear that the organisers had not properly prepared for the amount of people who attended resulting in a series of highly concerning issues.”
Shah went on to portray how attendees “were subjected to hours” of queuing to get to the bars or water fountains. She also added that “the toilet facilities were insufficient and again commanded excessive queues.”
Shah also aimed further criticism towards the “dangerous” exit procedures run by the event, describing how ” The only (very small) exit that you planned to channel all crowds through was clearly not appropriate and this proved true with crowd control issues, trampling, just overall dangerous crowd management.”
“These concerts were dangerous, wholly inadequate and issues still have not been addressed. We demand a refund in compensation for such a terrible and frightening experience.”
Festival Republic have responded to the complaints via Twitter (see below), writing that “Fans on Friday and Saturday deserved a better bar service, before including a statement from the Workers Beer Company in the link of their apology.
Fans on Friday and Saturday deserved a better bar service. In light of this, Workers Beer Company have issued the following statement. https://t.co/Zf6sFDJJak
— Festival Republic (@FRfestivals) July 1, 2018
The statement from the bar company, to explain that there was an “unprecedented failure of up to 40% of our staff to turn up.
“As a consequence people had to wait an unnecessarily long time to be served.” Before adding “For this we unreservedly apologise.”
This has managed to create further anger amongst customers, who are now accusing Festival Republic- who run a huge festival separately in Reading and Leeds- of failing to properly take responsibility for the overall poor organisation of the event as a whole. Festival Republic have not made any further comment at this time.
