Kultureland organizer says music festival burdened by series of setbacks

Jhene Aiko arrives at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Sunday, March 14, 2021. Two Ontario music festivals spiralled into disarray over the weekend, leaving concertgoers fuming and calling for refunds. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

A confluence of staffing shortages, delayed visas and a sudden change of venue left Kultureland Festival attendees fuming this past weekend, while the organizer now tries to explain how the celebration went off the rails.

Ferell Laditi told The Canadian Press that the inaugural edition of his two-day R&B and Afro-fusion music festival outside Toronto went nothing like he planned.

"Looking back at it now, maybe I should have just cancelled," he said in a phone interview.

"But when I created this festival, the vision was to bring everybody together, bring all the cultures, and give something that the city can hold onto. It was never my intention to scam anyone or take their money and not give them performances."

By Sunday night, many Kultureland ticket holders turned to social media to vent their frustrations, which included headliner Jhene Aiko never taking the stage.

The event became the latest in a series of Ontario music events that have fallen apart and left concertgoers feeling ripped off.

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Last week, electronic music festival Ever After pulled the plug a week before it was set to launch as ticket holders wondered if they'd ever get back the money they spent.

Meanwhile, attendees at Kingston Music Festival in North York, Ont. posted videos over the weekend of concertgoers rushing toward the stage after pushing down the fence separating general admission and VIP sections. Some attendees complained of a lack of water at the venue in the midst of a heat wave.

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

Over at Kultureland, the setbacks fell like dominoes, and ticket holders said the troubles were not properly communicated by organizers.

Many fans had to rush around the Greater Toronto Area on Sunday when Kultureland moved from its original venue at Markham Fairgrounds to the Ajax Downs Racetrack -- a 1/2-hour drive away.

Laurie Concepcion, who paid $250 for her two-day pass, had concerns about the festival even before she arrived at the event grounds on Saturday afternoon. By that point, she said organizers had been slow to post the performance schedule.

Upon her arrival, she saw festivalgoers waiting outside the gates for what she said turned out to be roughly four hours. Some were so hungry and thirsty that she says they ordered food delivery services to drop off supplies while standing in line.

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

Without addressing specifics, Laditi said staffing and security at the venue "just wasn't up to par" with expectations. So he decided late Saturday night to move Sunday's Kultureland show across the city to the racetrack, a relatively unprecedented turn of events for an ongoing festival.

"Without the connections I had, it's literally impossible to move an event venue in that short amount of time," he said.

"I had to call in a lot of favours."

But he acknowledged that his decision helped create new complications that compounded with some other unanticipated hurdles.

Ticket holders complained the Sunday venue change came less than an hour before showtime, leaving some of them rushing across the city in their cars or taxis.

Once they got there, the waiting continued and several acts on the bill never took the stage, including Stonebwoy, Fireboy DML, Lojay and Kamo Mphela. Laditi blamed their absence on last-minute visa problems that kept the African artists from entering Canada.

"We've been working on their visas for months," he said.

"Because of the pandemic, the visa issuing in office (was) backed up, so a lot of the processes took weeks and weeks. That's not something we can control."

Rounding out the Sunday issues were unanticipated problems with the headliner Aiko, whose performance was slated to take place at the abandoned venue. That's where her elaborate stage design remained as of Sunday.

Kultureland waited until around midnight to inform waiting festivalgoers via social media that she would no longer be performing since her show required "a level of visuals that we could not have technically produced in a short period of time."

Laditi said the festival was "still trying to make it work" with Aiko before they finally concluded around 7 p.m. that she couldn't go forward with her show. He was unable to account for why it took until midnight to tell the crowd.

"We could have put that statement out a lot -- a little bit -- sooner, but there's a lot of legalities there that we had to sort out," he said.

Even as Sunday began to fall apart, Laditi said he already intended to refund concertgoers for that experience.

"We were planning to refund everybody for that second day -- and that's still the plan," he said, noting that details will be provided to ticket holders shortly.

He added that rumours online that artists weren't paid were untrue.

"Everybody who was on that lineup was fully paid," he said.

Laditi plans to move forward with a second edition of Kultureland next year, which he is confident will go smoother.

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

"I know there's been a lot of setbacks with this, but the goal is to build something that can continue to connect cultures and build the community we have here in Canada."

Some ticket holders say they can't see themselves buying tickets to another Kultureland or any other show.

"I don't see myself going to any festivals soon," said Tobi Nicholas by phone as he headed home from Sunday's event.

"You can't trust anybody."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 8, 2022.