Metaldays - COVID19 Q&A
Official statement on Covid-19 and Cancellation.
Dear MetalDays visitors,
I will try to put some light on the situation with answering some of the comments/questions that rose up after our yesterday’s post. Please understand that I, nor admins will engage in conversations and will not answer nor comment any of your comments afterwards. Therefore, please follow us for all further news and statements regarding present situation. Please be aware that we can’t and won’t answer every single e-mail about this. Our posts are official statements and there you may find all needed answers. Please be aware that I don’t speak in the name of any other mentioned festival, nor I represent their festivals in any way.
I have picked some comments on FB and IG, and have put them in order that would give you our whole perspective on the situation;
Q: “You are crazy! almost all of Europe is at home and cannot go beyond borders! and here in Italy we are almost all on vacation because the factories have closed due to the virus emergency! hahahah do you believe that by July the virus will disappear!? Germany, France, Spain, England we are all in bad shape!"
Answer: We are aware about the situations in other countries. It is similar to the situation in Slovenia. Though, we don’t build our opinion and we do not act based on what we believe. We do work on the festival 2020 as if it will happen as planed due to very simple reason; Slovenian government, and governments of other countries did not announce yet that events, travel and gatherings will be banned for July and August. Once this changes (if), you will be notified. We can’t act as isolated case and stage festival during the lockdown. This should be pretty easy to understand. We do not act and do not think this way. …but, as of now July and August are on and so is MetalDays.
Q: “There's no chance at all that it'll take place. As bad as it is, we should start to accept this.
Download Festival in England did it the right way and they've cancelled it, they didn't want to disappoint the visitors in the last minute, like almost all the other festivals will do...
At the latest at the end of April, but very probably even earlier, the other big festivals in June, like Hellfest in France and Greenfield in Switzerland will get cancelled and then all the others will one by one follow, sad but true.”
Answer: Download, Hellfest and festivals of similar same size and genre are not connected to MetalDays whatsoever. Although you may be influenced with Download cancellation, I can assure you that this does not affect MetalDays at all. They work with huge Headliners that should be by now ready and set for the May/June festival tour. As this was not possible, I assume all (or many) of them canceled their tours, so canceled festivals had no other choice. MetalDays belongs to the group of so-called August run, together with Wacken, Summer Breeze, Brutal Assault, Bloodstock to name few of them. We do share bands and each festival in this run is important to all other festivals in same run. Only when one or more of them announce cancellation, you may assume MetalDays will do the same. Not earlier.
Q: “All my respect to you for trying and it's sad that this pandemic could affect your business, but let's be realistic. You should cancel it. I personally don't want to travel to a festival in mainland Europe during a pandemic.. You have a large body of water, its literally going to be a breeding ground. Plus most of your guests and artists will probably be unable to come. It's not fair to leave it too late to cancel because people need to make plans.”
Answer: We never said it could not affect our business. It already did. Big time! If there will be no lockdown, and legally we will be allowed to stage the festival, we will proceed with staging MetalDays 100%. We need 14 days at most to be ready to go. Deciding not to come to the festival, despite being possible, is solely your personal decision. We can just respect it. Regarding plans; no one of you can plan anything at the moment. I understand that many of you would like us to say “canceled” just to be able to put this plans behind you, but this won’t happen until we are 100% sure that there will be such orders from the governments. As you can’t plan anything at the moment (and this is not our fault), I suggest you just concentrate on what you can do for your well being at the moment. This is most we all can do.
Q: “Would you refund the tickets should you have to cancel after all?”
Answer: Can’t say at the moment. Every ticket buyer accepted our T&C that says: “Force Majeure: in the case of circumstances beyond Promoter's control such as war, civil or political unrest, actions and orders from the authorities, strikes, catastrophes, epidemics, pandemics or other severe damages or highly unexpected factors, Promoter of MetalDays festival may cancel or may be forced to cancel the festival. In such case all the funds received including (but not limited to) money from sold tickets, parking, additional fees, upgrades, sponsorship, donations and similar will not be refunded.” Source: https://www.metaldays.net/p82/tc
Please understand that upon booking artists, and booking production for 2020 like stages, toilets, and so on (too many to mention) we entered same or similar legal bound with the Artists and vendors. I can’t say how they will proceed with this, and therefore I don’t want to say anything about refund at the moment. We are playing with ideas like additional dates, vouchers for upcoming MetalDays, Headbanger’s Holiday and Winter Days of Metal. We’ll see.
Q: “Would you refund tickets to those that can’t come?”
Answer: If festival is going to happen, I am 100% sure you will be able to sell your ticket in no time. We are working on solutions, please follow our official channels for more information.
Q: “How many American bands you have? Do you know Testament is sick on virus? Do you think they will travel to Europe?”
Answer: We don’t have many USA bands, and anyway we are not depending on line up in order to make festival happen. We have a list of hundreds European bands waiting to step in as replacement in case of Artist cancellations.
Q: “Cancel”
Answer: No, we won’t do it as long as there is legally possible for us to stage MetalDays 2020. With staging MetalDays 2020 we do take care of Artist existence, existence of Music Industry, existence of our office crew, festival crew, and all the vendors that are our partners throughout thick and thin times that we had in our past.
If we can put a festival for all those that are feeding their families with being musicians, bartenders, cleaners or securities, renting apartments and running small bars and restaurants, we will do it.
We will do it for all of you that will be able to attend, ‘cos after we all have been through due to the pandemic, we deserve it.
We owe it to each other.
Boban Milunovic, CEO/owner MetalDays festival
Dear MetalDays visitors,
I will try to put some light on the situation with answering some of the comments/questions that rose up after our yesterday’s post. Please understand that I, nor admins will engage in conversations and will not answer nor comment any of your comments afterwards. Therefore, please follow us for all further news and statements regarding present situation. Please be aware that we can’t and won’t answer every single e-mail about this. Our posts are official statements and there you may find all needed answers. Please be aware that I don’t speak in the name of any other mentioned festival, nor I represent their festivals in any way.
I have picked some comments on FB and IG, and have put them in order that would give you our whole perspective on the situation;
Q: “You are crazy! almost all of Europe is at home and cannot go beyond borders! and here in Italy we are almost all on vacation because the factories have closed due to the virus emergency! hahahah do you believe that by July the virus will disappear!? Germany, France, Spain, England we are all in bad shape!"
Answer: We are aware about the situations in other countries. It is similar to the situation in Slovenia. Though, we don’t build our opinion and we do not act based on what we believe. We do work on the festival 2020 as if it will happen as planed due to very simple reason; Slovenian government, and governments of other countries did not announce yet that events, travel and gatherings will be banned for July and August. Once this changes (if), you will be notified. We can’t act as isolated case and stage festival during the lockdown. This should be pretty easy to understand. We do not act and do not think this way. …but, as of now July and August are on and so is MetalDays.
Q: “There's no chance at all that it'll take place. As bad as it is, we should start to accept this.
Download Festival in England did it the right way and they've cancelled it, they didn't want to disappoint the visitors in the last minute, like almost all the other festivals will do...
At the latest at the end of April, but very probably even earlier, the other big festivals in June, like Hellfest in France and Greenfield in Switzerland will get cancelled and then all the others will one by one follow, sad but true.”
Answer: Download, Hellfest and festivals of similar same size and genre are not connected to MetalDays whatsoever. Although you may be influenced with Download cancellation, I can assure you that this does not affect MetalDays at all. They work with huge Headliners that should be by now ready and set for the May/June festival tour. As this was not possible, I assume all (or many) of them canceled their tours, so canceled festivals had no other choice. MetalDays belongs to the group of so-called August run, together with Wacken, Summer Breeze, Brutal Assault, Bloodstock to name few of them. We do share bands and each festival in this run is important to all other festivals in same run. Only when one or more of them announce cancellation, you may assume MetalDays will do the same. Not earlier.
Q: “All my respect to you for trying and it's sad that this pandemic could affect your business, but let's be realistic. You should cancel it. I personally don't want to travel to a festival in mainland Europe during a pandemic.. You have a large body of water, its literally going to be a breeding ground. Plus most of your guests and artists will probably be unable to come. It's not fair to leave it too late to cancel because people need to make plans.”
Answer: We never said it could not affect our business. It already did. Big time! If there will be no lockdown, and legally we will be allowed to stage the festival, we will proceed with staging MetalDays 100%. We need 14 days at most to be ready to go. Deciding not to come to the festival, despite being possible, is solely your personal decision. We can just respect it. Regarding plans; no one of you can plan anything at the moment. I understand that many of you would like us to say “canceled” just to be able to put this plans behind you, but this won’t happen until we are 100% sure that there will be such orders from the governments. As you can’t plan anything at the moment (and this is not our fault), I suggest you just concentrate on what you can do for your well being at the moment. This is most we all can do.
Q: “Would you refund the tickets should you have to cancel after all?”
Answer: Can’t say at the moment. Every ticket buyer accepted our T&C that says: “Force Majeure: in the case of circumstances beyond Promoter's control such as war, civil or political unrest, actions and orders from the authorities, strikes, catastrophes, epidemics, pandemics or other severe damages or highly unexpected factors, Promoter of MetalDays festival may cancel or may be forced to cancel the festival. In such case all the funds received including (but not limited to) money from sold tickets, parking, additional fees, upgrades, sponsorship, donations and similar will not be refunded.” Source: https://www.metaldays.net/p82/tc
Please understand that upon booking artists, and booking production for 2020 like stages, toilets, and so on (too many to mention) we entered same or similar legal bound with the Artists and vendors. I can’t say how they will proceed with this, and therefore I don’t want to say anything about refund at the moment. We are playing with ideas like additional dates, vouchers for upcoming MetalDays, Headbanger’s Holiday and Winter Days of Metal. We’ll see.
Q: “Would you refund tickets to those that can’t come?”
Answer: If festival is going to happen, I am 100% sure you will be able to sell your ticket in no time. We are working on solutions, please follow our official channels for more information.
Q: “How many American bands you have? Do you know Testament is sick on virus? Do you think they will travel to Europe?”
Answer: We don’t have many USA bands, and anyway we are not depending on line up in order to make festival happen. We have a list of hundreds European bands waiting to step in as replacement in case of Artist cancellations.
Q: “Cancel”
Answer: No, we won’t do it as long as there is legally possible for us to stage MetalDays 2020. With staging MetalDays 2020 we do take care of Artist existence, existence of Music Industry, existence of our office crew, festival crew, and all the vendors that are our partners throughout thick and thin times that we had in our past.
If we can put a festival for all those that are feeding their families with being musicians, bartenders, cleaners or securities, renting apartments and running small bars and restaurants, we will do it.
We will do it for all of you that will be able to attend, ‘cos after we all have been through due to the pandemic, we deserve it.
We owe it to each other.
Boban Milunovic, CEO/owner MetalDays festival