NIK: ICU's response to the Mean Fiddler re. early closing.

[Steve Pond]

I thought you'd be interested in what I wrote to the Mean Fiddler re. last
nights early box office closing, here it is in full:



Hi Chris,

I was just sitting down to write a thank you email for making last nights gig
as painless as it could be when the "other" emails started pouring in..

It seems the box office was closed at 9pm and anyone arriving after that time
was told in no uncertain terms to F980 off.. I know of at least 10 people that
were turned away like this, these were the ones that know my email address.. I
wonder how many others there are?

It looks like we reached the cost of the venue & you stopped caring.. thanks
for that.

As you know I was prepared to take a financial bath on this gig just so that
people who had planned to see us at the aborted Dingwalls show would still get
to see us even if they went to Camden & had to be re-directed.. this should
have been a clue that their might have been some late arrivals.

The whole point of this gig was to avoid having to deal with irate fans who've
travelled miles & then found we wern`t playing, and your organisation has
managed to cock that little idealist dream up hasn't it.

I know you can say that it`s wrong to charge people £8/£9 for 50 minutes
entertainment, but that should be their choice, not yours.

Suffice to say that's left a rotten taste in my mouth after what was a fun
evening despite being a financial disaster, and all your talk about things
being done "for the music" etc etc sounds very hollow now...

Yours, still disillusioned with everything & everyone in the so called
"entertainment" industry,

-Steve Pond.



Once again I can`t apologise enough to anyone that travelled & didn`t get in,
that pisses me off more than the £X00 the night lost me financially.

-S.