Motionless in White Take a Cue From Bad Religion, Cancel Their Tour so Fans Can Get Their Money Back
MetalSucks has nice things to say about Phil Labonte AND Motionless in White, both in the same morning? WHAT THE SHIT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD?!?!
‘Tis true: we may not be fans of MiW’s music, we have to applaud them for their decision to cancel — not simply postpone — their tour with Knocked Loose, Stick to Your Guns, and Ovtlier, which was scheduled to begin earlier this week. The reason? The “refund policies from various ticketing companies,” the band says in a statement:
“U.S MIW Fans –
“After processing the information our band and team have been receiving regarding the uncertain future of live events in the near future, as well as factoring in refund policies from various ticketing companies, we have decided to mark the Black & Blue Tour as ‘canceled’ for the time being.
“We fully plan to rebook the tour as early as we can once we start to see live events returning around the world. Though this is a tough decision, considering it ‘canceled’ now allows you to collect refunds and that is what we feel is the best course of action.
“We hope that everyone is staying healthy and sane right now. We are looking forward to finally getting back on the road to see you.”
In case you’ve been living under a pile of white make-up and black hair dye, that “refund policies from various ticketing companies” thing is referring to the recent brouhaha surrounding Ticketmaster. The ticketing giant recently created a shitstorm by retroactively changing their refund policy to only cover fully canceled events instead of those that have been postponed or rescheduled (even if new dates haven’t been announced yet)… which is a big deal, because the economy is completely fucked right now, scores of people are out of work, and they could really use that money to, like, stay alive and stuff. After coming under fire from Johnny Law, Ticketmaster (along with their parent company, Live Nation, and Live Nation’s biggest competitor, AEG) announced that they’d go back to their old policy, although they’re gonna put up a bunch of red tape and make it a total pain in the ass to get your refund in the hopes that they can still keep your money: customers will only have 30 day windows in which to get their reimbursement, which means they have to pay extra-close attention to the status of any given event and then follow a specific set of instructions or otherwise forfeit their cash.
Motionless in White follow in the footsteps of Bad Religion, who took the same tactic yesterday. Only Bad Religion weren’t quite so explicit in their announcement. Coming right out and saying, in so many words, “We want you to be able to get your money back from large corporations that are trying to stop you from doing so” is actually pretty ballsy, ’cause they could theoretically alienate said corporations in the process.
And so, Motionless in White, for the first, and perhaps last, time, MetalSucks applauds you. Here’s hoping more bands follow your example.
[via The PRP]
