Calm. It is the first message sent by consumer and user organizations to the festival cancellation. “Now there are other more important problems and they have to do with the safety and well-being of injured people,” he says. Vincent Ingladaresponsible for the Union of Consumerswho adds that compensation could be requested, one of the complaints already expressed by social networks some of the people who attended the festival.
“An economic compensation could be studied, either returning a proportional part of the ticket because it has not been possible to enjoy it until the end or offering the possibility of enjoy a discount for the next edition”Inglada explains. However, he indicates that it is not certain that this return can be guaranteed since the suspension can be considered to be due to “major cause” and that it depends on the conditions of sale of those tickets.
The reflection is similar to that carried out by the person in charge of Facua in the Valencian Community, Paul Bernard. “If the cancellation is due to bad weather, you can argue that it’s exceptional,” he says. In this sense, one of the keys will be whether, as the investigations indicate so far, the festival had all the permits in order, since otherwise the situation would be different and financial compensation could be mandatory.
a solution is needed
Bernard considers that the festival “has to provide some kind of solution”. “Whatever it is, the solution always has to be chosen by the user,” he says. Thus, it breaks down that the date of celebration of an event is an essential fact and that in case of being modified and that the user cannot attend, he “must have the option of choosing that new date, an alternative or choosing the return of the money “.
More difficult, he believes, would be to claim other expenses in addition to those that the entry entails, such as accommodation or travel. “Being a cancellation not attributable 100% to the company but to bad weather, totally unpredictable, it would be much more complicated and it would be necessary to assess whether this bad weather was foreseeable or if it could have been celebrated,” he indicates while adding that there are concerts that do take place despite the fact that it rains because “everything is ready”.
However, Inglada aims not only to go only to the legal obligations that the festival finally has for the return of the ticket but also to the “good will” of the organizers and the relationship that it establishes with its clients, in this case, the thousands of young people who went or thought to go to Cullera.
Related news
Thus, the secretary general of the Union of Consumers He assures that for his part he would opt “for a solution that was good for the user”. In this sense, it defends the “proportional” refund of the unconsumed ticket or a compensation for next year’s ticket as happened with the previous editions canceled by the pandemic.
However, he is aware that this will also depend on the rest of the contracts that the organization has with the artists themselves and the economic mishap that it may entail and the insurance that the users and the organization have in the purchase of tickets.