Features
No Watershed For Promoter
Walkerton, Ontario, promoter Richard Sharpe and his company, Next Presentations, will go to a pre-trial conference July 5th, facing 342 charges of unfair business practices stemming from the failed Watershed IV festival in 2003.
Following the cancellation, Sharpe said he issued ticket refunds but soon ran out of money and was forced to give out concert vouchers. The vouchers were to be valid at any event he promoted within the Walkerton area.
“I did it because it was morally the right thing to do,” Sharpe told Pollstar. “It said right on the tickets: No refunds.”
Charges were leveled by the Ministry of Commercial and Business Services after it received complaints from 93 ticket buyers who allege Sharpe engaged in cases of false, misleading or deceptive consumer representation between January 2004 and September 2005, according to the region’s Record newspaper.
According to information presented to court in February, Sharpe failed to supply cash refunds offered for ducats to the canceled festival, the paper said.
The promoter said he probably would’ve been better off not trying to rectify the situation.
“Under the Business Protection Act, they’re claiming that I shouldn’t have issued the vouchers at all,” Sharpe said. “Frankly, had I not issued the vouchers, none of this would’ve happened.”
The lineup for the 2003 festival was to include
There were various reasons for the festival’s failure, Sharpe said, including a mad cow disease scare and a SARS outbreak in Toronto that led to a dip in ticket sales.
“Every time our tickets would start to spike half decent, they got knocked back down with bad media,” he explained. “It was a very bad summer for a lot of people.”
Other charges allege the promoter and Next Presentations failed to provide a free concert promised in June 2004 to make up for the canceled festival, The Record reported.
Sharpe said there was never a free concert promised.
After its cancellation, Watershed IV was to be rescheduled for Labor Day weekend in 2004. But that never happened. According to Sharpe, Walkerton breached a contract agreement and canceled the rescheduled festival without cause.
The promoter has since filed a state of claim against the city, Walkerton Mayor Charles Bagnatto, and Council Member Timothy Mancell, seeking compensation for lost funds.
“The town is going to be held responsible for what they did do and what they did not do,” Sharpe said. “The truth about what happened up there is going to come out.”
– Mitchell Peters