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LAMC distances itself from digital payment provider following Guns N’ Roses saga

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It hasn’t been an easy couple of weeks for LAMC Productions, organiser of the Guns N’ Roses concert.Soon after the rock and roll fest, LAMC Productions’ Facebook page was flooded with complaints about long queues and faulty payment systems. To facilitate cashless payments, the concert organisers implanted a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. Unfortunately this saw several bumps on the road with event go-ers unable to purchase products they had pre-paid for. As such, many concert goers were as such concerned about the refund of their dollars spent on food and beverage items.According to a press statement sent out by LAMC Productions to local media, all payments were handled by Sandpiper’s. LAMC Productions said this was the first time it used the digital payment services and as such, relied on Sandpiper’s experience and expertise.“LAMC Productions never had possession or control over these devices as they were handled and placed at the various locations at the venue by Sandpiper. The digital payment system was entirely Sandpiper’s. Except for ticket sales handled by SISTIC, Sandpiper was the merchant for all digital payments – pre-event and onsite during the event. This included collection of payments for food and beverage,” LAMC Productions said, adding refunds for the concert-goers should be handled by the company.It added that Sandpiper has transferred to LAMC Productions the cash collected from onsite top-ups during the event in one lump sum. However, it has not provided any concert-goer details or a breakdown of the lump sum received in cash. As a result, LAMC Productions, at this stage, does not know who to return the monies to.“LAMC Productions placed a lot of trust in Sandpiper [...] LAMC are baffled that Sandpiper do not want to process these cash refunds as well. LAMC are now consulting their lawyers,” said the statement.While it is understandable that LAMC is taking a clear stance on where exactly the issue went wrong, and distancing itself from the problem area, from a customer experience/relation point of view, it is still the main organiser's responsibility to fascilitate the process, said Yeo Wei Qi, regional head of event services at Lighthouse Events.“If I had been an event go-er, I would much prefer to go to the main organiser for all issues, and not have to find my way around with its partners,” Yeo said.  She however added that there is no one-size-fits-all to when an organiser should take blame and when to distance themselves from an issue.“It varies according to the nature of the event,” she said. In this instance, she encourages the company to take full responsibility rather than rely on its B2B partners to resolve the issue.Agreeing with her is Ian Terry, managing director of FreemanXP. Terry added that the usual protocol for any event organiser is to take the fall if any other aspects go wrong.  He added that testing is vital in any large scale event such as this."You always need to text any system you implement before and event. Test for anything that can go wrong, " he said.Meanwhile, according to a statement given to today by Sandpiper to Today, it said that Sandpiper has proposed a web based solution to the organiser for them to be able to start collecting customers refund applications, and are awaiting their feedback and acceptance”.

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