Grateful Dead-inspired festival cancels — without issuing refunds. ‘Sounds like fraud’
An annual Grateful Dead-inspired music festival in California was canceled 10 days before the show — and organizers are not offering refunds, according to social media posts.
The organizers for the Skull & Roses festival posted the news on the event’s social media accounts Tuesday, April 9, and turned off comments on Instagram but did not do so on Facebook, where angered fans complained it felt as though they had been defrauded.
“Dear Dead Heads, with deep sorrow I must inform you that SKULL & ROSES 6 has been canceled,” founder Chris Mitrovich wrote in the statement. “In all transparency, the financial devastation of the 2023 show made it impossible to sustain the weight of the new production.”
The statement did not go into detail about the “financial devastation” from last year’s show. It said the organizers had “maintained hope and exhausted every imaginable possibility, right up to this very moment,” and made the announcement when it became clear that the festival had “reached the end of the line.”
“All the cards are down and there’s nothing left to see,” the statement says, adding that the decision was made for the organizers, not by them. “Had we known (or stopped fighting) sooner, we would have let you know then.”
The sixth annual festival was scheduled to take place April 19-21 in Ventura.
Ticket prices varied among tiers and camping and RV accommodations, but general admission tickets for a single day were sold between $60 and $150, according to music blog Way.com. Three-day tickets were available for $380, and tickets for 4-day access to the festival and a kick-off party were sold for $530.
A footer on the statement reads: “While tickets and hotels were sold on a non-refundable basis, we sincerely wish that funds were available to refund all purchases. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case at this time. Additional information will be provided just as soon as it becomes available” and would be posted on the festival’s website and social media accounts.
Fans shared their outrage in comments on an Instagram post from FestiveOwl, a blog dedicated to music festival news, rumors and lineup information.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an event so blatantly state that refunds are NOT happening while simultaneously canceling ten days out…” the account wrote on the post, asking for others’ thoughts on the fest’s statement.
“So basically they knowingly used ’24 ticket sales to pay off ’23 obligations and leave the buyers hanging,” someone said in the comments. “Sounds like fraud and the guy should go to jail,” they said, adding that it felt just like a repeat of the fraudulent Fyre Festival fiasco in 2017.
“They just straight up premeditatedly robbed everyone to pay for last year’s … show,” another person said.
“So basically (you’re) ripping us off… 1 week before show time...,” someone said on the festival’s Facebook post.
“So you sold tickets that you knew in advance you couldn’t honor,” another person said. “Why? So you could pay for last year. Liars. Thieves.”
Several people complained that not only would they lose out on the money spent on the festival itself, but they would also not be able to be refunded money spent on travel and other accommodations — and some threatened to sue.
“Sooo instead of refunding tickets and hotels now they’re gonna have to pay for lawyers fees too,” someone said.
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