Ticket holders still waiting for refunds after Ontario country music festival cancelled for third time

Usually, when a concert or event gets cancelled, a refund is issued to the ticket holder within 30 days. Well, tens of thousands of Ontario festivalgoers have been waiting three years for their money back.

The Havelock Country Jamboree was scheduled to take place in Havelock, Ontario, this weekend but instead was cancelled for the third year in a row. The last time the festival took place was in 2019, before the pandemic.

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The Jamboree was one of the largest music festivals in Canada, allegedly attracting over 20,000 people each year. Big names in country have performed in the past, including Wynonna Judd and Loretta Lynn.

News of the cancellation first broke out in June with no real explanation.

“We are very sorry to announce that there will not be a 2022 Havelock Country Jamboree. We are uncertain as to what will happen for 2023 at this time and are working to figure everything out,” read the festival’s website.

When it came to discussing refunds for the thousands of fans, the festival said, “we are working on that as well and will advise as soon as we can.”

To this day, Havelock Country Jamboree has not issued any updates to individuals waiting for refunds.

So what now?

Over 10,000 people have joined a public Facebook group to air their frustrations and keep one another updated about refunds. Some group members say they’ve spent around $1,500 on tickets to the four-day fest back in 2019 and they’re still waiting to get their money back.

“All of the residents of this community are appalled and embarrassed by the untrustworthy actions of the current jamboree owners,” Misa Lok wrote.

Daily Hive attempted to contact the event organizers via email, which bounced back immediately. Several attempts were made to contact them by phone but we were greeted with an odd “please do not leave a message this is not an answering service” message.

Those running the Havelock Country Jamboree Instagram account have disabled comments, so essentially there’s no way anyone can get a hold of the organizers.

A number of fed up ticket holders have stated in the group that they’d be interested in joining a class action lawsuit if this does not get resolved.