W.A.S.P. SMASH!
Whoops, wrong kind of wasp.
W.A.S.P. are on tour right now. W.A.S.P. were supposed to play here in NYC last Thursday night. Even though DEP and Shrinebuilder were playing that very same evening, W.A.S.P. somehow managed to wrangle in five-hundred fans for their gig. So what did W.A.S.P. do? W.A.S.P. canceled their show at the very last second, when most concert goers were apparently already at the venue. Nice going, W.A.S.P.
But now W.A.S.P. have released a statement regarding W.A.S.P.’s cancellation. And W.A.S.P. apparently like to see W.A.S.P.’s own band name written out a lot. Take a look for yourself:
“An unfortunate incident arose this evening at the Gramercy Theater in New York City that we need to let you know about. It prevented W.A.S.P. from performing this show, and caused us to disappoint many of our New York fans and friends.
“About 50 VIP tickets were sold to about 50 different fans for $50.00 apiece, twice the normal ticket price for this show. It turned out that part of that VIP ticket price included a meet-and-greet with W.A.S.P. These tickets were sold to these 50 or so fans without W.A.S.P. having any knowledge of this, let alone agreeing to this.
“Upon learning of this late in the afternoon of the show day, W.A.S.P. insisted that the promoter of this venue, who sold these VIP tickets to these fans, return the VIP portion of those tickets back to the fans. This meant that the promoter would have had to give each of those VIP ticket holders a refund of $25.00 of each ticket. W.A.S.P. demanded that this $25.00 be returned to each of these ticket holders in cash prior to the meet-and-greet , which W.A.S.P. was still going to do. The promoter refused. W.A.S.P. then informed the promoter unless these monies were refunded to these fans, in cash, that the band would not perform the show. Again, the promoter refused and W.A.S.P. canceled the show.
“We are saddened that it had to result in the cancellation of our performance for this evening, but we believe this unfortunate situation amounts to nothing more than our fans being ripped off.
“We have never changed a fan for an autograph and WILL NEVER charge any fans for an autograph.
“To all the fans that came to the show and were turned away, please accept our sincerest apologies. W.A.S.P. CANNOT and WILL NOT ever stand by and watch or be involved in their fans being ripped off… EVER.”
MetalSucks is of two minds about this. On the one hand, it’s good that W.A.S.P. don’t want to charge fans for autographs. (A lot of bands are doing that these days, and MetalSucks thinks it’s a load of crap.) And while MetalSucks’ cynicism makes MetalSucks want to say “They were probably just pissed that they didn’t get their cut,” W.A.S.P. apparently stood out by their tour bus giving free autographs after the cancellation was announced, so W.A.S.P. is probably being truthful in this instance.
On the other hand, MetalSucks thinks that W.A.S.P. let down a lot of W.A.S.P. fans at a time when W.A.S.P. can’t really afford to alienate anyone, and MetalSucks supposes that those “VIP” W.A.S.P. fans were clearly willing to pay a little extra to meet the band, so maybe MetalSucks thinks that maybe W.A.S.P. should have sucked it up and just played. Especially when MetalSucks considers that in trying to save fifty W.A.S.P. fans fifty bucks each, W.A.S.P. probably cost five-hundred W.A.S.P. fans five bucks each, assuming all those W.A.S.P. fans bought their tickets whatever ticketing site the venue was using.
What do MetalSucks readers think of MetalSucks’ assesment? Did W.A.S.P. do the right thing or should the W.A.S.P. show have gone on?
-AR
