Hopeful Heritage Live ticket owners have been left enraged after all of its summer festival shows were cancelled due to “far lower than average ticket sales”.
Those who bought tickets for £200 were expecting to see artists including Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Eric Clapton, Ricky Martin, and Lionel Richie this summer.
But on Monday (13 July), it was announced that the series of gigs, taking place at the Englefield Estate, the Audley End Estate and the Sandringham Estate, had been called off after failing to secure an investment package to help with costs.
“We’re devastated to report the heartbreaking news that we have no choice but to cancel this summer’s Heritage Live festivals,” a statement from organisers said.
“We’d been working desperately hard behind the scenes to conclude an investment and equity package to ease the burden of an extraordinarily tough year, but this last beacon of hope has fallen through at the 11th hour, making it impossible to go ahead.”
Fans scrambling to get their money back now appear to be confused over conflicting intel on how to apply for refunds.
While the festival’s official statement stated that fans should contact their ticket provider for a refund, one such provider, SeeTickets, has reportedly told fans to contact the festival directly.
TikTok user Kevin Doyle said: “SeeTickets has no authority to assess, approve, or process refund requests on the Promoter’s behalf and is therefore unable to provide refunds directly to ticket holders.
He said that the email he received from the provider shared an address for ticketholders to use to apply for a refund – but he claimed that when he tried to contact this address, he received an automated bounce back response. Other ticketholders in the comments also reported struggles in contacting the given email address.
HelsBels replied: “I’m fuming, less than 2 weeks and cancelled. I should be seeing Richard Ashcroft on 24th, cannot get in touch with either SeeTickets or Heritage Live as you mentioned, all social media and contact details shut down. Someone owes me £200.”
Meanwhile, TikTok user bits.and.bobs.of.my.life claimed that “both companies are refusing to take responsibility for refunds”.
Heritage Live, which is managed by events promoter GCE Live, told The Independent it was “hugely disappointed by the position taken by See Tickets for these events” but said it’s “glad to see that See Tickets customers are starting to be refunded”.
“As music fans and festival-goers ourselves, we understand exactly how frustrating it is to be left chasing a refund for a show you were looking forward to, and it's disappointing to see customers put in that position whilst other ticket agents have already paid out in full.
They said that customers who purchased through See Tickets and have not yet received confirmation “are therefore advised to contact them directly, quoting their order number”.
While a spokesperson for See Tickets told The Independent said that it would be issuing refunds to customers despite claiming that “the decision to cancel these events was taken solely by the event promoter, GCE Live”.
“Our position remains that responsibility for customer refunds rests with the promoter since they have failed to return the ticket sale proceeds to us to enable this,” they said. “However, we do not want customers to be left out of pocket while these issues remain unresolved. We have therefore decided to fund customer refunds ourselves in the first instance, irrespective of the legal position.
“We will be reaching out to them shortly with instructions on how to claim their refunds. We remain committed to providing the best possible service to our customers, even in exceptionally difficult circumstances.”
Other stars who were set to play at the festival included Scissor Sisters, The Streets, and Faithless at Audley End; and Richard Ashcroft, UB40 Featuring Ali Campbell, and Ministry of Sound Classical at Englefield.
