The management of the Ventnor Winter Gardens have sent OnTheWight an email seeking to put across their side of the story of Tuesday’s massive over-selling of UB40 tickets, and subsequent punter anger.
Yesterday UB40 and their management issued a stinging statement.
The details
In its latest statement (in full, below), there’s a list of who the WG say isn’t to blame, including “any ticket sales agencies.” On Tuesday evening, Kevin Sussmilch, owner of the venue, had told OnTheWight that the number of tickets sold online had been the problem.
The statement goes on to talk of ‘miscommunication’ between the Winter Gardens and the event’s promoter on the number of people that the Winter Gardens could take (ie its capacity).
Equipment now mentioned
It also seeks to place the blame on the promoter for not informing the venue of various equipment the band placed on the floor, they say, taking up space and reducing capacity. This wasn’t mentioned to OnTheWight on the evening.
OnTheWight has contacted the promoter of the UB40 gig to seek their side of the story.
The Winter Gardens statement in full
The Winter Gardens would again like to sincerely apologise to those people who did not manage to get in to see the UB40 Concert.
In no way is there any suggestion that responsibility lies with any agency other than with the promoter and the venue, nor is there any suggestion that responsibility lies with UB40, their management, agents or any ticket sales agencies.
The Winter Gardens was hired as a whole venue by the promoter, Rock & Roll Enterprises, and received an allocation of tickets to sell for the concert on behalf of the promoter.
There had been miscommunication between the venue and the promoter over the capacity of the venue which was exacerbated when it was realised by the venue late on the day of the concert that the available floor space was significantly reduced because of the siting of sound systems, barriers and mixing desks, which heightened health and safety concerns – this should have been picked up by the promoter well in advance of the event and discussed with the venue. Had this happened the sales of tickets could have been limited at a much earlier date.
The Winter Gardens will be refunding tickets sold by the venue, if those people can please contact [email protected]. The promoter will be responsible for refunding sales via the other ticket agencies.
Apologies once again for the inconvenience caused.
