STRATOVARIUS: Problems at Pro Rock festival in Kiev Ukraine

Jens Johansson of Stratovarius posted the following update on their official site:

"First of all apologies to everyone who bought tickets and didn't get to see anyone play on Sunday.

The bands had a hard day as well, of course we all had looked forward to play. For Stratovarius it was pretty complicated travel, from Ilosaarirock in Joensuu Finland the previous day to Kiev. It was barely possible to make it in 24 hours but we did (it took something like 23 hours, I personally managed to sleep only about two hours on the plane from Munich to Kiev).

After finding out that the whole thing was canceled and getting a few hours more sleep, we all got together for some food and drinks. Lauri suggested we organize an impromptu gig in some club in Kiev. I was personally a bit wary since word got around that one of Arch Enemy's technicians had been robbed in the airport the previous day -- he had been forced to withdraw all possible cash from his ATM card at gunpoint.

But Finntroll did this, they played somewhere and it was apparently fantastic.

By the time Finntroll got back from their club gig, happy, sweaty and (hopefully) a bit drunk, they faced the same problem that the rest of us did -- our room keys didn't work any more, and our personal stuff in the rooms and all the bands' gear was being held hostage by the hotel since they hadn't gotten paid either. They also held everyone's passports. The hotel was the Hotel Rus, http://www.hotelrus.kiev.ua, and this hotel is without a question a place to be avoided if possible.

Eventually the bands had to solve this problem ourselves, the promoter was nowhere to be seen.

An especially shitty thing was that apparently at the venue no notice was given to the fans about the cancellation. No sign, no announcement, nothing.

There were a lot of rumors about why this happened and it was a bit difficult to find anything concrete out. Some of the rumors and counter-rumors:

* Online ticketing agency delayed payment until next week, venue and staff wanted payment already on Sunday. But the online ticket site http://www.tiketov.net/ is a web site which is controlled by the promoter...

* Fake tickets were in circulation.

* Bad ticket sales (this is what the promoter hints at in his brief statement). But the techs and bands that were there the first day said the crowd was quite OK, with sales of about 4000 or so.

So in the end it's just one of those rock'n'roll mysteries, the fans got ripped off, the bands got ripped off and all the money disappeared .. somewhere.

It seems much the blame for all this falls in the lap of the organizer Sergey Gorokh of WIMP Productions (email wimp@ukr.net, phone +380509415839, icq 282-011-652).

If there is any news about refunds or any other news I will post them here (I wouldn't hold my breath)."