Scams in music industry
MBABANE - As a music fanatic, imagine seeing a poster of your favourite musician coming to perform in the country.
Surreal? You go about starting making plans on how you will raise funds to buy the ticket and logistics leading to the day of the concert, but when that day arrives, your favourite artist is nowhere to be found because that poster you saw was a way of making sales, basically you have been scammed!
It happens in April 2017, roughly 5 000 people spent hundreds to thousands of Dollars for t i ckets t o what t hey thought would be the experience of a lifetime: A luxury music festival in an idyllic tropical setting on a private island in the Bahamas.
Promotions for the much- hyped event called Fyre Festival, promised a place where the tropical sun shines all day, and celebrations ignite the night.
Festival goers were promised a real- life island fantasy with luxury accommodation, gourmet food and the chance to party with celebrities like US rapper Ja Rule and models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. But the reality was closer to a disaster that played out in real- time on social media.
Thousands of attendees arrived in the Bahamas to find disorganisation as fellow festival goers scrambled to claim a limited number of tents ( rather than the luxury villas they’d been promised), some with bare, soaking- wet mattresses that had been left outside in the rain, this led to fun lovers demanding refunds as they realised that they had been sold a dream.
Locally, before even the pandemic started, there were organisers accused of selling a dream to fun lovers.
Posters would circulate with certain artists making the line- up only for the very same artists to issue statements distancing themselves from those particular events.
Now, t h i s c o u l d b e c a u s e d b y a number of t hi ngs; a gr e e ments on payments or using that person’s brand to sell the event.
In other countries, The New York State Legislature to be specific, enacted a new statute specifically aimed at advertising i n t he music i ndustry. The Truth in Music Advertising Act, NY Art & Cult Aff. 34.01, et seq., were effective as of September 14, 2007 and specifically stipulates that: False or misleading representations about an event can i nclude claims made in advertising or communications regarding, the artists performing
Services
Or services available/ activities during the event. The maximum fines for false and misleading representations or wrongly accepting payment are: US$ 220 000 ( E 3 265 695.40) for an individual and US$ 1.1 million ( E16 255 357) for a company.
Locally, The Arts and Culture Sector is moving towards licensing of all event organisers in the country whether t hey a r e members of t he association or not. Event venues will also have t o apply for a l i cence t o host arts and entertainment events. Likewise every event will need t o have a permit from the Council of Arts and Culture.
The process of issuing event permits is now in place and event organisers need t o apply for a permit for any e nt e r t a i nment e vent t hey want t o stage. Since people are not forced to join the association, there will be events organised by members and non- members.
The difference between members and non- members is that members pay a much l esser fee t o apply for an event permit than non- members. Of course, there are many other benefits that members will enjoy over non- members.
“Anyone running an event of this kind without a permit risks having their event cancelled i mmediately without notice.
“As soon as government reopens events we hope t o have t he venue accreditation process completed so