The events that transpired at the Vue in West Ashley on Halloween night have come under scrutiny by disappointed attendees.  The criticisms, and justification for those criticisms, go beyond what would be expected when nearly 1,000 people attend a concert.  Instead, the event did not live up to the promises that were made at the box office, the Facebook group and when the tickets were purchased.  No longer were patrons allowed to bring their own beer past 2 a.m.  No longer were they allowed to stay on the premises until 5 a.m.  No longer was the main act of the night, Derek Vincent Smith of Pretty Lights, permitted to play the highly anticipated late night show.  To the credit of the organizers, all of these letdowns were more or less out of their control.  However, I believe that a concert is like any other product, and therefore the producers of the event should be held to the same standards of liability which U.S. businesses are held.  Restitutions should be paid to any ticket holder who is willing to surrender a small amount of time to enact a legal right.  

United States tort law is characterized by three distinct classes of torts: intentional, negligence and product liability.  The latter covers the case of the “Haunted Harbor Fest Hard Cheese.”  Under U.S. product liability law, an expressed warranty is a promise made at the time of the sale, either spoken or written.  It holds the sellers and manufacturer responsible for those promises and to make good on any failure to uphold those promises.  Difficulty can arise when the subjective language of the salesman to persuade a customer is interpreted as an expressed warranty on the product.  In the Haunted Harbor Fest case, one look at the ticket stub and the official Facebook site can verify that several promises were explicitly broken.  For example, the timing of the event, the lineup of entertainers, ability to BYOB and explicit declarations like “Featuring Derek Vincent Smith of Pretty Lights" are facts that describe the functions of the product.  Whereas, statements like “[you’ll] see a sight that almost stops your heart,” and “LED's bringing more HEAT than you could possibly ask,” are subjective opinions and therefore not a guarantee.   One promise was redacted prior to the start at the event.  The BYOB provision was taken back via a published statement and ticket holders may have been able to return their tickets.  Thus we cannot hold the producers liable for the disappointment that may have occurred when patrons arrived in awe as they had to leave the coolers in the car. Still, three warranties were violated and determining the value of the loss that occurred is the next step.

Normalizing the value embedded in the price of each ticket is a difficult task.  However, if we consider each hour of the event a portion of the ticket price we arrive with a per hour/per ticket value.  Since each ticket cost $25 and the event had a planned duration of seven hours, we get an approximate value of $3.50 per hour.  This is a conservative estimate because we are not factoring in the extra value ticket holders placed on seeing the headlining act, as well as the added value of partying past the usual 2 a.m. closing time of bars and music venues in the area.  Now that we have a number and knowing that the event ended at approximately 2 a.m., we can estimate the restitutions that should be paid.  There is some discretion as to the actual end time of the event.  According to the Facebook site, the end time was 5 a.m., but the ticket stated it as 4 a.m.  If we use the 5 a.m. end time we come up with $10.50 ($7 for the 4 a.m. end time) of lost satisfaction.  

I propose that the organizers of the event, Collaborative Productions, should return between $10.50 and $7 to each ticket holder.  After establishing that expressed warranties were violated and determining a (conservative) estimate of the loss of value to the ticket holder, I now urge Collaborative Productions to defend these claims or pay up.  I urge everyone not to think personally about this matter and rather feel confident that by exercising your rights, you will ensure warranties made about future events will be upheld.