Yam Carnival has incredible advertising - the adverts came up on Instagram and the line-up was show stopping. We bought two tickets at £150+ for the festival at Clapham in August 2021.
It was absolute crap and it was impossible to contact staff, ultimately I raised a successful Section 75 claim.
Moral of the story? If you see anything organised by Obi Peter Asika or EVENT HORIZON ENTERTAINMENT LTD, run a mile.
Pay attention though, because EVENT HORIZON organise plenty of festivals subcontracting light, sound, etc so it can be hard to see who the organiser is from a website.
1,400 folk signed a petition for refunds (link). It was dubbed "The worst festival I've ever been to" (link) and the comment section on Instragam shows how angry people still are.
Here's how I got the refund. First, I paid with a credit card & then I did not quit.
Ari Lennox & others cancelled in the run up to the Carnival. Remi didn't even turn up. The sound system was terrible on the main stage and both Beenie Man and Kehlani were visibly irritated on stage. Both artists pulled out the ear feed.
It was impossible to hear the lyrics from NSG and Yemi Alade. The entire programme ran late which meant it was impossible to move between stages to see acts that were running at similar times, for example Nao and Kehlani.
After choosing to stick with the main stage because of the delay and risks of seeing none of the artists I came to see, Kehlani was cut after three songs and this was following technical issues of about 30 minutes
The WATER queues were minimum 45 minutes, food was at least an hour and we had to stay on site because we couldn't leave site & get back on*, and one vendor was asking for bank transfers because their payment machine was bust.
We had a patty and one meal for the 7 hours we were there and it was impossible to buy food at all and/or buy food between acts.
*we found out later that the ticket app was down so people weren't even having tickets or COVID results checked.
We didn't even hear Davido because we were so hungry that we left because - you guessed it - more delayed & technical issues. Then, we met people on the way back to the car who said - again - that the sound was crap and they left 15 minutes in to Davido.
I messaged via Instagram once we were back home. Having messaged on the 29th August, I got a response 2nd September with a link that I could submit my complaint via. After that, I got no more messages from Instagram, despite chasing three times. They tried to leave me on read!
The more I thought about how bad the festival was the angrier I got, and the fury fueled me.
The issue was that I'd bought the ticket from TicketMaster so it was them who was the entity that would refund me. But they were reluctant to do that without 'sign-off' from Yam Carnival, A.K.A - EVENT HORIZON ENTERTAINMENT LTD.
I had a couple of false starts trying to find the owners of the company that organised the event because the names are super similar. Companies House has a list of all the registered companies in the UK, and if you click into the company then you can see who owns it.
Again, after many false starts - I found the homepage of the company - Event Horizon (eventhorizonent.com) - and crosschecked the names and events. I'd found the correct company which meant I had a name and a registered company address.
I posted a signed for letter to be received by Mr Asika at the registered address of the company, and it was signed for on delivery on the 4th November at the Thavies Inn House address. Mr Asika is the Director and the sole person with significant control of EVENT HORIZON ENTERTAINMENT LTD.
After all this time & energy, none of my Instragam messages, emails, or letters were being acknowledged. I could see it was a daft wee dance when I got thanked for my 'feedback' from Yam Carnival despite myemail clearly saying that I wanted a refund. I said it wasn't feedback, and we wanted our money back.
The email address that TicketMaster gave me as a contact wasn't working and the only email I’d gotten a response via is eventhorizonententertainment@gmail.com and with an unnamed person.
At this point, reality was setting in and I realised I'd have to work smarter.
Section 75 laws mean your credit card provider must protect purchases over £100 for free, meaning you could get your money back if there's a problem.
I found more information at Money Saving Expert and submitted a claim via Nationwide with all the information on all the complaints across all of the avenues I had tried.
I even tried 'Sally Solves' at the Telegraph and got no response.
Nationwide received my form and called me back. The issue was that because I hadn't left as soon as the first bad thing happened, my claim was weak. When you (or I, or any consumer) purchase a ticket we are paying for entry and not for the event.
On the basis that we left half an hour before it ended, we had effectively 'utilised' the services. I explained that there must be some accountability for when services are shit - I bought the tickets because the event that I purchased admission to was meant to be excellent.
It was explained to me that we can argue that the service supplied was not quality, i.e., it was defective and not as advertised, but because this is subjective, the chances of success are low.
Well, my wee paper trail of discontent did the trick. Whilst the claim is being processed, the money gets put back in your account until they reach a decision. The money has been in my account since January and I expect it'll stay there.
For the love of all, if you see anything organised by Obi Peter Asika or EVENT HORIZON ENTERTAINMENT LTD, Company number 11798757, run a mile.