Kultureland promoter says music festival has been marred by a series of setbacks | CBC News

A combination of staff shortages, late visas and a sudden change of venue left crowds at Kultureland festival furious last weekend, while the organizer is now trying to explain how the celebration got out of hand.

Ferell Laditi told The Canadian Press that the inaugural edition of his two-day R&B and Afro-fusion music festival outside of Toronto didn’t go as he planned.

“Looking back on it now, maybe I should have just canceled,” he said in a phone interview.

“But when I started this festival, the vision was to bring everyone together, bring all cultures together and give something for the city to hold on to. It was never my intention to scam anyone or take their money and not give them performances.”

On Sunday night, many Kultureland ticket holders took to social media to vent their frustration, including headliner Jhene Aiko, who never took the stage.

The event became the latest in a string of Ontario music events that have fallen apart, leaving concertgoers feeling ripped off.

Last week, electronic music festival Ever After pulled the plug a week before it was due to kick off, as ticket holders wondered if they would ever get back the money they spent.

Leave fans in the heat

Meanwhile, attendees at the Kingston Music Festival in North York, Ontario, over the weekend posted videos of concertgoers rushing onto the stage after tearing down the fence separating the general admission and VIP areas. Some attendees complained of water shortages at the venue amid a heatwave.

Kingston Music Festival officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Over at Kultureland, setbacks fell like dominoes, and ticket holders said the problems hadn’t been properly communicated by the organisers.

Many fans had to rush through the greater Toronto area on Sunday as Kultureland moved from its original venue at the Markham Fairgrounds to the Ajax Downs Racetrack – a half hour drive away.

Laurie Concepcion, who paid $250 for her two-day pass, had concerns about the festival even before she arrived at the venue on Saturday afternoon. At that point, she said, organizers were slow to release the performance schedule.

Upon arrival, she saw festival-goers waiting outside the gates for what she said took about four hours.

Some were so hungry and thirsty that they ordered grocery deliveries to drop off supplies while they waited in line.

Other attendees noted that they saw people fainting from heat exhaustion around the venue during headliner Burna Boy’s performance on Saturday night.

Without going into specifics, Laditi said staff and security at the venue “simply didn’t live up to expectations”. So late on Saturday night he decided to move Sunday’s Kultureland show across town to the circuit, a relatively unprecedented turn of events for an ongoing festival.

“It’s literally impossible to move a venue in such a short amount of time without the connections I had,” he said.

“I had to call in a lot of favors.”

But he conceded that his decision helped create new complications that compounded with some other unforeseen hurdles.

Ticket holders complained that the change of venue happened less than an hour before the show on Sunday, and some of them sped around the city in their cars or taxis.

When they got there the wait continued and several acts on the bill never took the stage including Stonebwoy, Fireboy DML, Lojay and Kamo Mphela. Laditi attributed her absence to last-minute visa problems that prevented the African artists from entering Canada.

“We’ve been working on their visas for months,” he said.

“Because of the pandemic, the visa issuance is in the office [was] secured, so that many processes took weeks and weeks to complete. It’s not something we can control.”

Rounding out the Sunday editions were unexpected problems with headliner Aiko, whose performance was set to take place at the abandoned venue. Her elaborate stage design stayed there from Sunday.

Kultureland waited until around midnight to inform waiting festival-goers via social media that she would no longer be performing as her show “required a visual level that we could not have technically produced in a short time”.

Laditi said the festival was still trying to make it work with Aiko before finally concluding at around 7pm that she could not proceed with her show. He couldn’t understand why it took until midnight to tell the crowd.

“We could have released that statement much – a little – sooner, but there are a lot of legal issues that we needed to sort out,” he said.

refunds are coming

Even as Sunday began to fall apart, Laditi said he already intends to reimburse concert-goers for the experience.

“We planned to refund everyone that second day – and that’s still the plan,” he said, noting that details will be shared with ticket holders shortly.

He added that rumors online that artists weren’t getting paid weren’t true.

“Everyone who was in that lineup was paid in full,” he said.

Laditi plans to proceed with a second edition of Kultureland next year, which he is confident will run more smoothly.

“Our goal for the next year is to make this a much better experience for everyone involved,” he said.

“I know there have been many setbacks along the way, but the goal is to build something that can continue to connect cultures and build the community that we have here in Canada.”

Some ticket holders say they can’t imagine buying tickets for another Kultureland or show.

“I don’t see myself going to festivals anytime soon,” Tobi Nicholas said on the phone as he drove home from Sunday’s event.

“You can’t trust anyone.”