UPDATE TO APRIL WA DANCE FESTIVAL AND COVID-19 PANDEMIC
As most of you would now be aware we have had no choice but to cancel our April festival due to Government Restrictions and Bans that have been put in place.
We need to be as transparent and clear with each and every one of you as we possibly can.
Putting together and organizing a festival has its costs prior to the event start date, it has time for staff on multiple aspects of the preparation. We also have flights for adjudicators and accommodation costs. Along with PayPal fees and also the booking fee charges we get charged through the Comps Online website for registrations.
With this being the first festival we have directly taken control of we were unfortunately (and we feel unfairly) subjected to PayPal deciding to withhold $15300 of the funds that were received for comps. We were more than open in regards to what the payments were for and spent 2 weeks in communications with them in regards to the festival and the business model. These funds are still held and will be held with PayPal until at least 24th April 2020. However, there is no promise from PayPal to actually release these funds. The 24th April 2020 is only a review date to look at our business payments and what has been processed between now and then. These issues with PayPal have been reported to the AFCA Ombudsman and we are in communication with them regarding the issues we are having, however they are refusing to do anything about the review date and have given PayPal until 24th April to respond to us regarding the complaint.
Between the monies we have already had to spend to date with various aspects for the April festival along with the issues we are continuously having with PayPal we are trying to work out the best way to proceed. We are constantly taking advice from the ACCC in regards to where we stand and what we have to do.
With the above in mind between held funds, spent funds, and the unknown times of future events we are not able to provide refunds for registration fees paid. We are looking at different options in regards to being able to transfer registrations over to future festivals and competitions but at this stage it is still something we are working through. With the events industry being ground to a halt and our parent company having no external income we would not be able to transfer everyone from April onto July as we would not have the working capital to proceed with any aspect of the July festival with having full outgoing costs of venue hire and time to go through what was needed to start the July festival.
As most of you would now be aware we have had no choice but to cancel our April festival due to Government Restrictions and Bans that have been put in place.
We need to be as transparent and clear with each and every one of you as we possibly can.
Putting together and organizing a festival has its costs prior to the event start date, it has time for staff on multiple aspects of the preparation. We also have flights for adjudicators and accommodation costs. Along with PayPal fees and also the booking fee charges we get charged through the Comps Online website for registrations.
With this being the first festival we have directly taken control of we were unfortunately (and we feel unfairly) subjected to PayPal deciding to withhold $15300 of the funds that were received for comps. We were more than open in regards to what the payments were for and spent 2 weeks in communications with them in regards to the festival and the business model. These funds are still held and will be held with PayPal until at least 24th April 2020. However, there is no promise from PayPal to actually release these funds. The 24th April 2020 is only a review date to look at our business payments and what has been processed between now and then. These issues with PayPal have been reported to the AFCA Ombudsman and we are in communication with them regarding the issues we are having, however they are refusing to do anything about the review date and have given PayPal until 24th April to respond to us regarding the complaint.
Between the monies we have already had to spend to date with various aspects for the April festival along with the issues we are continuously having with PayPal we are trying to work out the best way to proceed. We are constantly taking advice from the ACCC in regards to where we stand and what we have to do.
With the above in mind between held funds, spent funds, and the unknown times of future events we are not able to provide refunds for registration fees paid. We are looking at different options in regards to being able to transfer registrations over to future festivals and competitions but at this stage it is still something we are working through. With the events industry being ground to a halt and our parent company having no external income we would not be able to transfer everyone from April onto July as we would not have the working capital to proceed with any aspect of the July festival with having full outgoing costs of venue hire and time to go through what was needed to start the July festival.