A popular hip hop and R&B festival that was set to take over Toronto’s Downsview Park next month has been postponed after its headliner Lil Wayne reportedly pulled out.
The Hot in Toronto musical festival was supposed to take place on June 22. It featured a heavy-hitting lineup that included T-Pain, Bow Wow, Mario, Lil Jon, Lil Kim, Fabolous, Mýa, and Lil Wayne as the main headliner.
The festival was first introduced last June by Nelly, who previously dubbed the event “Hot in Herre” as a reference to his hit song. According to organizers, this year’s festival has been temporarily delayed after Lil Wayne reportedly dropped out last minute, CityNews reports.
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“Hot in Toronto is going to be postponed. All tickets will be valid for the new date and lineup. We are working on securing new dates and new artists for the show. Refund options will be presented in 1-2 two weeks,” reads an email statement to Now Toronto on Wednesday.
Many fans who have spent hundreds on their tickets are now demanding refunds and answers online. In fact, some fans are even claiming they got straight up scammed.
General admission tickets for the festival were priced at $240 and VIP tickets started at $350 and went up to $13,500 for booths with bottle service.
“Seems like we just got scammed. The prices should have been changed and you know this. I have sent a message on every option for my refund,” one person said on Instagram.
“We paid our money and you took away the artists we paid for. How are you going to make it right? By ghosting everyone? That’s not how it works but according to you that’s how you think it works. You have a lot of people upset. I understand things happen but you can’t treat us like that,” another user said.
“Thanks for the update letting us know Lil Wayne is not attending. (We clearly already all figured this out) hence the abundance of messages stating you scammed us and we would like a refund lol once AGAIN I would like to know wtf I just paid 350 for?” another comment read.
“You jumped the gun and I would like SOMEONE…ANYONE to contact me regarding a REFUND. There is no customer service, there is just dead air with you people and your pointless emails. I want a response,” the comment continued.
According to CityNews, organizers from Festivals of Vaughan, say they cannot specify why Lil Wayne backed out due to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
“To be honest, we still don’t know what happened. As mentioned, Lil Wayne’s team said he was no longer able to perform at our show. It is hard to recover from losing your headlining artist and since it is such a busy weekend no major artists were available. We hope to get everyone their money back ASAP and announce a bigger and better rescheduled date soon,” the spokesperson said to the news outlet.
For now, organizers are telling ticket holders to await an update in their email soon and are working on processing every refund. In addition, they are working to remedy the situation and plan another date for the festival.
