The Pandemonium Rocks festival has been in and out of the news for a few months now, and it’s been kind of amazing to watch. I think I first heard about it when there was harrumphing about the Sydney date being held at The Domain on Anzac Day:
A music festival planned for Sydney’s CBD will be moved to Western Sydney after the RSL deemed the event “inappropriate”.
NSW Premier Chris Minns defended his decision to relocate the Pandemonium event from the Domain in the CBD to Sydney Olympic Park.
The rock music festival, which features acts like Alice Cooper, Blondie and Deep Purple, was initially booked for 11:30am in the CBD, a venue managed by the Botanic Gardens of Sydney.
The annual Anzac Day commemoration service will take place in front of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park at 12:30pm, in earshot of the music festival.
And to be sure it probably wasn’t the best idea to do this, but I was more intrigued by the lineup. Alice Cooper, Blondie and Deep Purple? And then there were more: Placebo? Wolfmother? Psychedelic Furs? Palaye Royale? Cosmic Psychos? Gyroscope? WHEATUS? GANG OF FOUR? DEAD KENNEDYS? What, and indeed, the FUCK. This would not be the last time the words “what the fuck” would be uttered in response to Pandemonium, especially when news came through that it had been cancelled.
This turned out to not actually be the case, but I don’t think anyone would’ve been too surprised if it had been (quite apart from the way music festivals are going tits up left right and centre around Australia right now). Unfortunately, the show was going on… but reduced from two stages to one and accordingly losing Placebo, Deep Purple, DKs, Go4 and Gyroscope. (Palaye Royale just dropped out too, but that was a family emergency rather than incompetence.) People were pissed, not without reason, and it didn’t help that Apex Entertainment weren’t exactly forthcoming with offers to refund people; currently they’re refusing to offer more than $70 cos that’s how muchc they’ve reduced ticket prices by.
The most interesting detail in this was that Blondie and Alice Cooper offered this joint statement:
So, am I reading that correctly if I think they’re saying the bands have actually been doing some of the organisational work for this festival…?
Frankly, though, they should be offering people refunds for adding Warwick Capper to the bill… that was JUST what was needed. That brothel he bought last year must not be paying the bills for him. Anyway, just as the people still looking forward to the event were getting ready for the tour to start tomorrow, THIS happened:
Pandemonium Rocks has inadvertently leaked the bank account details, phone numbers, names, and email addresses of hundreds of ticket holders. This breach occurred late this evening through a form that was distributed to festival attendees seeking refunds.
The data exposure includes sensitive financial information such as BSB and account numbers. These details belonged to attendees who submitted their personal information to claim a partial refund after the festival lineup dramatically changed last minute, leading to the cancellation of performances by 7 out of the 13 scheduled bands.
Fuck. Me. Dead. Someone was asking Joel King, the author of this piece, on Facebook (where I first read it) if he thought Andrew McManus had actually done this deliberately to discourage people who hadn’t yet applied for their refund, because this is the 21st century and this is the Internet and people make that sort of assumption because it’s de rigueur, and King said probably not but to be honest I think I actually wouldn’t be surprised to find that he had… and in any case there’s a bunch of people on brother King’s FB who are now very wary of taking McManus’ offer. Oy. I just hope against hope that the shows still go OK, cos I can imagine this festival fucking up even further, though I’m afraid to ask how in case McManus tells me. In any case, I think the real headline show will eventually be in court somehow…
