Monuments Fire Their Management and Booking Agency, Postpone North American Tour
Monuments were all set to kick off a North American tour with Skyharbor, Greyhaven, and Vespera tomorrow (September 4) — but they’ve now been forced to push that trek back to April.
The reason? Visa issues, which have truly become the Professor James Moriarty to metal touring bands’ Sherlock Holmes. But while that is, unfortunately, not an unusual reason for a tour delay/cancellation, what is unusual is for the band to blame the conflict on their management and booking agency — which is what Monuments have done:
“Hey everyone,
“Unfortunately, we come with bad news.
“We will be moving our North America tour to April 2020 due to complications with our US Visa’s.
“All tickets bought will still be valid for the new dates.
“We would of preferred to have said that this happened due to the US government with other bands having difficulty recently but ultimately this is not the case.
“On August 17th, our visa’s still hadn’t been applied for, as information was missing from our label [Century Media].
“With an average wait time of 17 days for an embassy appointment in London, 10 days for visa approval and 7 days after the appointment to get passports back, we made the decision to move the tour rather than be any later than we already would have been.
“In light of this news, we are no longer affiliated with Go Down Believing Management or Decibel touring.
“Not only does this effect you all, by not being able to see us play for a further 8 months. Some of us took these 6 weeks off from work and gave away this work to other people, which most certainly isn’t ideal.
“We apologise for this news, but we will be there, stronger than ever. The new dates will be announced very shortly.
“Mx”
It feels like there are some pieces of the story missing. If the band was aware on August 17 that there was no chance they could make the trek, why didn’t they announce the postponement until August 30? Is Century Media off the hook because Monuments are contractually tied to them, or does the band legitimately not also blame CM as well as their management and booking agent? Did they just assume that management and/or the booking agent was handling the visas? Did they not check in to see how that process was going until August 17?
Regardless, this is a bummer. The good news is, April 2020 is practically right around the corner! A mere eight months away. Why, that’s practically no time at all!
[via Metal Insider]
