Arcade Fire’s North American tour kicks off Thursday night in Washington, and more ticket holders are uneasy about allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct against singer Win Butler. that the promoters do not give them refunds. Five years after #MeToo, such inflexible practices are being challenged, as more similar ethical issues are likely to emerge.
A handful of people claimed, on social networks, to have been reimbursed for various shows on the tour. But according to hundreds of others, the American company Live Nation, which promotes the concerts, is not responding to refund requests and playing down the allegations.
This is how more than 600 people signed the petition of Maude Sills-Néron, a Quebecer accusing Ticketmaster – the subsidiary of Live Nation which sells and distributes tickets – of ignoring their requests. More than 200 people have signed another, launched by a certain Emma Miller almost two months ago, deploring the same situation.
Signatories of these petitions, as well as several other Internet users, also claim to want to obtain a refund – without success – since Beck, who was to provide the first part of the North American tour, withdrew. Recall that the singer Feist also dropped the European portion of the tour, expressing her discomfort with the allegations against Win Butler. Disappointed European spectators were not reimbursed either.
What’s more, Live Nation and Ticketmaster did not respond to the To have to. Evenko, promoter of the show at the Bell Center scheduled for December 3, suggested contacting Live Nation, but would not comment further on the situation. This therefore remains very tense between the promoters and their audience, but Live Nation does not seem to take offense.
Towards “best” practices?
According to François Colbert, expert in arts marketing and director of the master’s degree in management of cultural enterprises at HEC Montreal, such inflexibility on the part of promoters could prove harmful in the long term, especially in the face of so much challenge. “Evenko is responsible for the Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs Festival. Such an attitude could give it a bad label and make its public or granting agencies cautious, ”he says.
Mr. Colbert therefore believes that “customers must demand reimbursement” since “these companies make a lot of money, and this kind of situation is part of the risks” that they implicitly accept to take.
The professor even believes that promoters such as Evenko and Live Nation should clarify, at the time of ticket purchase, that refunds could be possible in the event of reversals of the situation due to ethical issues such as allegations of sexual harassment. : “It is to the advantage of promoters to adopt better practices, considering how much the issue of harassment is debated at the moment”.
Maude Sills-Néron, who launched one of the two petitions demanding a refund, is also of this opinion: “The lack of response from the group and the silence of the promoters involved suggest a minimization of the allegations, a brainwashing process (gaslighting) historically repeated over and over again against victims of sexual assault”.
According to Mr. Colbert, the industry must therefore show “more sensitivity” with regard to the issues of our time, in particular consent, when “several similar situations are emerging in the field of the arts”.