Hawaiians Cryin’ Lawsuit

Aerosmith fans filed a class-action lawsuit against the band in Maui Circuit Court October 18th after the rockers canceled a September 26th gig.

While ticket holders were refunded the face value of their tickets, the lawsuit alleges that fans are owed much more as the cancellation cost ticket buyers between $500,000 and $3 million for travel costs, handling fees and other nonrefunded costs, according to the Honolulu Advertiser.

Nonrefunded fees include the cash some customers plunked down to purchase advance tickets for the show – some chose to drop $29.99 to $40 to join Aerosmith’s fan club and others paid between $40 and $70 to become members of the Maui Arts & Culture Center.

The dozen or so ticket buyers that joined the class-action suit were especially upset by the cancellation because instead of playing at the Maui War Memorial Stadium, which was supposed to be the final stop on Aerosmith’s North American tour, the band rescheduled their September 10th Chicago-area date to play the Allstate Arena September 24th.

According to the suit, the Hawaii show sold at least 9,000 tickets compared with Allstate Arena’s 18,500.

Aerosmith said the Maui concert was shelved because the new Chicago date made the Hawaiian show logistically impossible – but the band still made it back to the islands later that week to put on a private show for Toyota car dealers at the University of Hawaii-Manoa’s Les Murakami Stadium, the Advertiser said.

"They came and played for car dealers and they blew off their performance for their fans," attorney Brandee Faria told the paper.

A complaint filed by Faria estimates that the Toyota corporate gathering attracted about 6,000 dealers and company employees and brought in an estimated $1 million for the band.

A representative at Mitch Schneider Organization, Aerosmith’s publicist, told Pollstar they had no comment on the lawsuit.