An agency that sold tickets for a Celine Dion concert in March and a cancelled Josh Grobin concert in April was on Tuesday placed under final liquidation.
An application for the liquidation of Ticket Connection was brought before Judge P Burton-Fourie by the agency itself, which said it was unable to pay debts totalling R7-million.
Sole shareholder Lise Kuhle blamed the promoter of the two concerts, Kusasa Commodities, for Ticket Connection’s financial woes.
In papers filed with the court, Kuhle said Ticket Connection contracted with Kusasa to conduct the ticket sales and reservations for the two concerts, and to collect the proceeds of the sales.
Kuhle told the court: ”In spite of the potential of the Celine Dion concert, it was badly organised, and Ticket Connection was as a result unable to sell as many tickets as had been anticipated.”
She said Kusasa had meanwhile run into financial problems as well, and was unable to repay loan finance for the two concerts.
She said the badly organised Celine Dion concert, and Kusasa’s financial problems had received wide publicity, which had led to the cancellation of Grobin’s tour.
This meant that ticket holders for the Grobin concerts had to be refunded.
Kuhle said Ticket Connection had already paid to Kusasa the proceeds of the ticket sales for the Grobin tour, by the time the Grobin tour was cancelled.
She said Kusasa had refused to refund her the proceeds from the Grobin ticket sales, which rendered Ticket Connection unable to reimburse aggrieved ticket holders.
She said concert goers who had paid by credit card, were claiming refunds totalling R230 000 for the cancelled Grobin tour, by way of credit card charge-backs, but Ticket Connection lacked the funds to meet the claims.
Ticket Connection had also suffered severe financial losses from credit card fraud. Kuhle said Ticket Connection had also had to retrench staff, and was unable to pay the monthly rental for its premises. – Sapa