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From Metal Sludge as written by Tuff's Stevie Rachelle:

Is Rock Harvest Another Great Big Music Festival or A Great Big Scam?

An open letter to music fans, promoters and the organizers of Rock Harvest.

Is Rock Harvest another great big music festival or a great big scam? Some are saying scam and I agree.

Warning!

Buyer beware.

If you buy a ticket to Rock Harvest don’t be surprised if the advertised band(s) you are paying to see don’t end up playing the event.

The proof is in their own posters and advertisements that have been circulating since early spring 2013. It’s now October, the event is just weeks away and over two dozen of the advertised artists are no longer appearing.

Why?

Well it depends on who you ask.

According to the ‘Promoters’ (Twisted Nail Productions) and ‘Co-Founders’ (John Guarnieri and Lyle Desplaines-Hawkins) these bands either cancelled, dropped off, broke up, there was a conflict of interest or they retired. Yes. Retired.

According to many of the bands themselves and their respective agents – it’s simple. Rock Harvest breached their contracts.

I know this for fact. As my band (Tuff) has one of those contracts.

Rock Harvest had signed legally binding contracts with several of these bands and agreed to terms set forth in those contracts. But in the recent months leading up to the event, Rock Harvest did not fulfill their end of the agreement (buying flights or sending deposits) and therefore the bands were left no other option than to “not appear” at Rock Harvest.

The main issue for most of these bands, were the flights. The promoters agreed to cover the cost of and buy the artists round trip flights and cover all related expenses for the weekend. Some of the artists agreed to play for free as it was a charity event. But in playing for free they also required hotels and local transportation.

Rock Harvest agreed to all of this with several of these name bands and also agreed to pay guaranteed fees to some of the bands as well.

My band (Tuff) was one of these bands.

Why I am writing this letter? Simple. I feel it necessary to clear the air.

The promoters from Rock Harvest have been name checking me online and claiming I have sabotaged their event. This is not true. But I did in fact ring the bell and warn every band associated with this event to ‘watch out’ as shit was going to hit the fan. I will say, in reaching out to many of my comrades online, they all didn’t react so fast – and some were convinced by the promoters themselves – that this was just “sour apples with Stevie Rachelle” and to ignore me.

I can tell you today. That every band I contacted has now dropped from this clusterfuck of an event and I was right.

Am I bragging? Nope. Just telling it like it is folks.

I know I am not a big fish, but I won’t sit idle when someone tries to step on me, my band, related brands or people I consider to be friends.

Also to be clear, Rock Harvest did buy and pay for advertisements on Metal Sludge. These were paid in advance to run their ads. But – as I get into detail here, my contract was a little different than some others. I agreed to run all of those ads for FREE – but only – and only if the event played and paid us (Tuff) our contract in full.

Let me explain how this was to work. Rock Harvest buys ad space, and also agrees to pay Tuff “X” amount of dollars for our appearance at their event. Then from that final payment and/or deposit made to Tuff – all of the Metal Sludge (pre-paid) ‘ad money’ would be deducted from the Tuff “guarantee” which ultimately then gives them the ad space for FREE. Dig?

Rock Harvest did not honor their contract with Tuff, we were never paid, and no we will not appear – so their ad space in the end was not FREE and they paid for it. Thanks for your business.

Let me state again, Tuff never received any of our appearance fee, no flights were purchased and no deposits made. The same applies for Love/Hate (who were packaged with us for this date) or any other band that I am aware of – contrary to their claims. You’ll see more on that below.

The facts are, Rock Harvest did not honor their contracts. They continued to delay purchasing the flights, delayed the deposits and asked for more time to complete this. Many of the bands and agents (including our own) granted additional time in the form of days, then weeks and even months. When it became clear they were not honoring their obligatory duties – the bands pulled out one by one.

The list of bands who were ‘advertised’ but are no longer appearing at Rock Harvest is noted below. This includes national acts, regional talent and even local bands.

HURRICANE,
KING KOBRA,
MITCH MALLOY,
RON KEEL,
RUSS DWARF,
FEMME FATALE,
LIBERTY’ N JUSTICE,
LOVE & HATE,
TUFF,
JETBOY,
SILENT RAGE,
LONDON,
FLOTSAM N’ JETSAM,
CIRCLE II CIRCLE,
LEATHERWOLF,
CAGE,
DEATH DEALER,
TANGO DOWN,
LINE OF FIRE,
STONEBREED,
BENEDICTUM,
DC4,
WHITE WIZZARD,
FARCRY,
RIVERA BOMMA,
DEATHRIDERS (FEATURING NEIL TURBIN),
RUSTY COOLEY

Rock Harvest Poster With 2o+ Bands No Longer Involved

As of today’s date, October 23rd 2013 the website http://www.fallenblue.org/ – the alleged ‘charity’ is still promoting a poster similar to the one above listing nearly 2 dozen bands that will not appear on the Rock Harvest event.

It is my opinion, that Rock Harvest is turning into a scam and a rip off for many involved. And the fans are gonna get scammed on this one for sure.

Who says so?

The fans themselves.

Read these comments below from fans who bought tickets for Rock Harvest.

———————————————————————————

The following comments were taken from the Rock Harvest ticket buy link on ShowClix

Greg C writes: It has less to do with the money than it does with being a victim of this fraud. The promoter used the names of bands to get me to purchase tickets in July for this November show. I was excited to see the bands that were listed. I planned on driving down from Pittsburgh and making it a weekend event. I recently went to this site to see who the final headliner was. To my surprise the headliners were gone from the list and had changed as well as most of the support bands. What happened to the lineup that I paid to see? I really did not see what was wrong with asking for a refund since I was no longer getting what I paid for. To be totally honest I would prefer that my money went to the cause rather to a promoter who used a bait and switch to defraud their customers. With only a few weeks left till this show I am still unsure what bands will be playing. I have heard that bands on the list have already cancelled and this current list has not been updated. This incident has not only hurt the bands and the people who bought tickets, it has hurt the reputation of the promoter, the cause and Showclix. I would rather purchase tickets at the door of a show than risk being defrauded by a lying promoter. Even tonight I am going to a showclix event and decided to buy tickets at the door rather than using Showclix.

Disgruntled writes: I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time. I’ve been a ticket holder for months and now I find out that two-thirds, no wait -make that three-quarters of the bands I wanted to see are out. This is unreal what a damn joke!!! I have the 3 day tickets, reservations at a hotel AND have planned to take off work.

Really writes: This is the biggest pile of smelling garbage I have ever smelled !!!! You bold face lie!!! You did not live up to your contractual obligations with the bands. You kept stringing bands on and on and on then blame the bands and you act innocent. Get a clue you defrauded bands!

C Curse writes: The whole thing is very disappointing. I have been looking forward to this show for many months and just about every band I wanted to see are not on the bill. I know the promoter got screwed, bands got screwed but most importantly the fans got screwed. Selling tickets and holding an event that is now completely different is not right. You guys should do the right thing

Waukesha AOR writes: i’m a fan who has booked a ticket in january, and after has booked a flight and hotel non refundable. and all the bands I want to see are gone . it’s easy to understand that i’m not “happy”. I don’t loose $45, but $450 and a dream.

Iceman writes: This Promoter obviously is a scam artist. Remember when he was announcing 2014, Rock Harvest III bands in June, July , how can we trust that they will play next Rock Harvest festival. He overbooked all these bands, we the music fan, fell for it and booked early. Now WE ARE FUCKED ! And the ticket agency will not give refunds back…The police charity that this is for, should be ashamed for scamming the music fan like this with this JOKE of a promotion..I emailed bands, and knew they were not playing this festival, before the promoter let the public know.. Total Joke….More than half the bands that were announced in May, not playing now…..Fuck You Rock Harvest II!

Pat W writes: @Iceman -totally agree with you. Complete scam this is turning out to be.

Rock Harvest II then responded to the above fans complaints with the following post:

Rock Harvest II writes:

Bands who have “cancelled”, Swindle or not ? (We are not and have not swindled anyone)

HURRICANE, (Robert is in Queensryche now and Andrew is on tour with a DIO Tribute band touring)
KING KOBRA, ( They do not want to tour, this was announced a longtime ago.)
Mitch MALLOY, ( He retired)
Ron KEEL, (Thanks to Stevie Rachelle from Tuff)
Russ DWARF,
FEMME FATALE, (Dropped off a longtime ago,)
LIBERTY’ N JUSTICE, (Band is not together and JK is to busy promoting another festival, conflict of interest)
LOVE & HATE, (fees paid but sponsor dropped off and affected us getting airfare)
TUFF, (fees paid but sponsor dropped off and affected us getting airfare
JETBOY, (a cetain band member is talking to other bands creating BS)
SILENT RAGE,
LONDON, (Our fault with booking airfare due to loss of sponsor)
CIRCLE II CIRCLE, ( You will see soon, not our issue)
LEATHERWOLF,
CAGE,
DEATH DEALER, (Ross the boss had other commitments after contract was signed)
TANGO DOWN, (Lack of airfare money)
LINE OF FIRE, (inner issues with band, not our fault)
BENEDICTUM,
DC4, (never a contract and wanted band fees that we did not have)
WHITE WIZZARD, (Band and drama issues, see bands press release)
MODERN SUPERSTAR,

Keep in mind this event is for fallenblue.org and we did not want any of this to happen at all. Events go through stuff like this all the time, and I have NEVER seen certain bands act so unprofessional. Most bands have understood and they WILL be on the next event.