Complaint Review: Balboa Music Festival Promoter

I was a diamond VIP ticket holder. My friends and I purchased our tickets at least a month in a half in advance. This was a big deal because the requirement to purchase those tickets was you had to buy 6 at a time. We were able to
purchase 12 tickets totaling to a whopping  $3,000.00.

We made it to the entrance of the park at 9:30. Since the venue didnt start till 10:00 we made a point of getting there early from our experiences at other outdoor festivals. We read on the festival website that we were not aloud to
bring coolers or umbrellas so we abided by those rules thinking that diamond VIP would be taking care of as we have at other events.

From the time we arrived their was no special VIP parking and no one seemed to know anything about how the handle VIP tickets. We parked in the dirt where they then told us that were we had parked was for handicapped parking. There were no signs and no direction, we changed our spot and proceeded to walk toward the festival area, as we walked, in the 95 degree heat mind you, one of the staff members stopped us and told us we had to get in line like everybody else, he was loud and rude.

We made our way to will call, since that was the only place we thought we could find some help, there was even more chaos, as the will call booth staff yelled at people that they could not get their tickets without a receipt.

 We were finally able to get someone who still did not know what to do but she did try to get us some information. As we waited a staff member in a cart was picking up patrons and we told him about our tickets and he kindly came back to
pick us up to finally take us to our reserved area.

Just as we thought thing were looking up, we found our tables were not ready; again we had to wait, by this time it was almost 11:30. They started to label each table; we just happen to see our table and walked on in.

We were promised on the website and by one of the VIP staff that we would have bottle service, a meal, and some mixed drinks. Yes we did get water but it was not cold we were also offered sodas which were not cold either. We did get a few shot size cups of what may have been cherry vodka.

As for the meal, we were told they would be brought out to our tables, which never happened. We even went backstage to see what was going on with the staff because after the third performance we noticed there was no staff to be found.

We were denied the food that was laid out in the back and again told that it would be brought out to us, because that food was being prepared for the performers.

We did not receive the service we paid for. We will definitely be taking action to get our money back for an extremely unorganized festival.

 P.S. It was hell getting out of that park after they cut the show early.