18 November 2022

The Grass is looking Greener: refunds now promised to all festival goers disappointed by cancelled event

| Evelyn Karatzas
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music festival

The refund process has begun for all ticket holders. Photo: The Grass is Greener, Facebook.

A refund process has been confirmed for the remaining unrefunded ticket holders for The Grass is Greener music festival that was cancelled a week before it was scheduled to be held.

The festival was organised for Sunday, 23 October, at Patrick White Lawns in Canberra, and on Sunday, 30 October, in Geelong. They were unexpectedly cancelled following a “culmination of multiple elements“.

When the announcement was made on 18 October, there was no guarantee that refunds would be provided, and festival organisers did not wish to make further comment on the matter after announcing the cancellation.

In mid-September, before being cancelled, The Grass is Greener announced via email and social media that their former ticket provider, Festicket, had gone into administration, meaning tickets would then be purchased via a new ticket provider, TicketFairy.

Once the festival was cancelled, as most people had purchased their ticket earlier in the year from Festicket, an email was sent out to them indicating Festicket could not provide refunds.

READ MORE The Grass isn’t Greener: cancelled music festival highlights post-COVID challenges

Ticket holders were informed they would need to reach out to their banks and dispute a payment on the grounds that goods and services were not received.

Then they would need to provide proof of purchase of their tickets, and their bank would further investigate and hopefully reverse the payment.

On Tuesday (15 November), an email was sent out to ticket holders who had purchased tickets to The Grass is Greener from late September and onwards (via TicketFairy) that the refund process for them had finally begun.

One Festicket ticket holder, Chantel Bulakovski, said she was quite upset to hear the festival had been cancelled.

“I was not 100 per cent shocked because a lot of festivals had been getting cancelled in Australia due to artists pulling out last minute or tickets not being sold, but it was really disappointing,” Ms Bulakovski said.

“Personally, I haven’t been to a music festival in Canberra before, and I was especially excited because one of the international artists on the lineup, ‘Ty Dolla $ign’, is one of my favourite artists and it would have been amazing to see him live.

“It was very unexpected that he was coming here in the first place as a lot of artists usually dismiss Canberra, so the fact that he, as well as many other great artists, were even acknowledged in Canberra was still shocking to me.”

However, she’s thrilled she’s getting a refund.

“I was concerned about not getting a refund as there were so many concerts and festivals taking place where artists kept dropping out and people weren’t getting what they paid for,” she said.

“At first, I questioned whether this festival was going to scam ticket holders and we wouldn’t get our money back … but I feel better that we are able to, I am now a lot less stressed.

“In future, I probably won’t be buying tickets to music festivals because a lot of the time artists pull out of line-ups as they don’t get their visas sorted in time and it just feels too good to be true. I will probably stick to concerts for now.”

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If you haven’t received your refund, here’s what to do:

TicketFairy

For TicketFairy ticket holders, they are required to click the link and:

  • provide their full name
  • select what event the ticket was purchased for (Canberra or Geelong)
  • enter the email address used to purchase tickets
  • type how many tickets were purchased
  • input the ticket IDs they are requesting refunds for (found on the digital ticket)
  • refund requests will then take up to 72 hours to be processed.

Festicket

An email from the festival earlier in November said, “Unfortunately, because Festicket has gone into administration, we never received your payments from them, so we don’t have the ability to return the money ourselves to your bank accounts”.

Each Festicket holder can apply for a chargeback through their banks

  • Contact their bank to dispute a payment on the grounds that ‘goods and services purchased were not received’
  • Provide payment information and proof that you didn’t receive what you paid for (these can include screenshots of The Grass is Greener Instagram or Facebook indicating the festival was cancelled)
  • Then the bank will investigate the dispute and hopefully reverse the payment.

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