Asia News: Weather Costly For One Love Asia; Sammy Hagar Plots Japan Return

HONG KONG

Weather Delay Costly For One Love Asia

The organizer of the One Love Festival will absorb as much as HK$15 million ($1.9 million) in costs on top of refund requests after the festival was rescheduled due to weather, the South China Morning Post reports.

Singapore-based IMC Live Global said it is “a foreign company with limited resources in Hong Kong to be able to respond adequately in the event of adverse weather conditions.”
On June 3, IMC broke the news that the three-day One Love Festival would be rescheduled from June 21-23 to June 29-July 1, and the venue changed from the Central Harbourfront Event Space to AsiaWorld-Expo, stressing that poor weather which had affected other major outdoor music events for the past month had prompted the company to move the festival.

In particular, a tropical storm had caused serious delays for the Waterbomb Hong Kong music festival held at the outdoor Wonderland venue on June 2.

One of the main problems for IMC was that the sudden change in dates had caused some of the scheduled artists, including Singapore singer-songwriter Stephanie Sun and the Taiwan rock band Power Station, to pull out of the festival.

In addition, many people from outside the territory who had tickets complained that they could not easily change flight and hotel reservations and demanded refunds. In addition, about 10 percent of ticketholders want to change their tickets for a different day.

One local legislator complained that “blaming poor weather” was not good enough, and that IMC, which was making its first business appearance in Hong Kong, should also provide “partial compensation” to visitors who had booked hotels and flights, since the festival was being boosted by the local Tourism Board. IMC said it would review each case.

In the meantime, IMC reserved three halls at AsiaWorld-Expo to make up for the 9,000-capacity Central Harborfront venue and has brought in additional acts to replace those who cancelled.

In related news, a Hong Kong government advisor has demanded that the Central Harborfront Event Space be “weatherproofed” so as to avoid the problems that led to the delays at Waterbomb and the rescheduling of One Love Asia.

JAPAN

Sammy Hagar Returns After 30 Years
Sammy Hagar says he’ll tour Japan for the first time in almost 30 years. Hagar’s “Best of All World Tour” will come to Nagoya Sept. 20, Osaka Sept. 22, and Tokyo Sept. 23.

In an Instagram post, Hagar celebrated his return to Japan. “It’s gonna be a party. We’re gonna make up for all that missing time…can’t wait, I’m lovin’ it. The best set list on the planet,” meaning he will include hits from all his collaborations with Montrose, Chickenfoot and Van Halen in addition to his solo material. In fact, the last time Hagar was in Japan was with Van Halen in 1995.