Forty days after AR Rahman’s concert in Chennai witnessed much chaos and was criticised for mismanagement by its organiser ACTC Events, many people who couldn’t attend the event complained that they hadn’t received refunds despite providing valid tickets. They also said that the organisers haven’t provided clear details of their criteria for reviewing the tickets to ascertain whether a person is eligible for refund.
Amid widespread criticism over the event held on September 10, within days, both AR Rahman and ACTC Events had assured that they would look into refunding those who left the venue disappointed, unable to attend the much-anticipated concert. Many fans alleged that overselling of tickets led to a stampede-like-situation in which a few people even suffered injuries, while some women complained of being groped amid the chaos.
On Tuesday, October 17, ACTC Events said in a statement that so far, a total of 1,500 tickets were refunded and that the process of refunding an additional 1,000 tickets is underway. However, many ticket purchasers are questioning how these numbers were arrived at and how the company was reviewing refund requests to ascertain who qualified for a refund and who didn’t. The ticket prices ranged from Rs 500 to as much as Rs 50,000 for a seat in the premium lounge area. Soon after the event, police had said that the venue had a capacity of 20,000 people but around 30,000 people had turned up – an excess of 10,000 people. While there’s no clear estimate of how many ticket holders were unable to attend the concert, many people have complained about refund requests being rejected.
Subramani, a resident of Chennai’s Perungulathur, has given up any hope of receiving a refund. He told TNM, “I booked nine tickets worth Rs 2,000 each. We reached the entry gate by 6.30 pm but we couldn’t enter because there was an unimaginable crowd waiting to enter already. We saw how bad the situation was, and since there were women with us and their safety was our priority, we decided to exit the venue immediately. We emailed ACTC for a refund but there has been no response.”
Subramani speculated, “Maybe they didn’t consider refunding our tickets because we managed to secure our wristbands the previous day (which could have led ACTC to presume we managed to attend the concert). There were some people who couldn’t even avail those bands on the day of the event.” However, one of TNM’s sources confirmed that they received a refund despite having collected their wristband prior to the event.
Sowparnika S, who had purchased tickets worth Rs 12,000 in total for her family, also couldn’t enter the gate. “My mother fainted outside and we had to rush her out. I explained our terrible experience at the concert and had emailed them requesting a refund after they tweeted in September. But they only sent one automated reply after I sent them three emails,” she complained. Sowparnika is also not sure yet if she will receive her refund.
Meanwhile, Madhu Karthik (name changed) who managed to get Rs 20,000 refunded informed TNM that it was only possible because she procured ACTC’s CEO Hemanth Raja’s contact and repeatedly texted him over a span of 10 days.
Speaking to TNM, she said that there was a lot of confusion over which email ID to send refund requests to. AR Rahman on September 11 had shared an email ID related to BToS Productions, a concert management company that he is associated with, asking fans to send refund requests and assuring a response. But a week later, ACTC Events gave another email ID. “Despite having emailed ACTC, there was no proper response and we felt cheated for the second time by AR Rahman,” Madhu said.
She added, “I decided to contact the CEO directly and procured his number. After repeatedly texting him, he processed my refund. While in conversation, I had asked how many tickets ACTC had refunded to which Hemanth responded that only 867 out of the thousands of requests were genuine although their Twitter statement said 2,500. So, I immediately asked him how ACTC arrived at ‘867’ and how they verified thousands of emails requesting refunds, but he didn't answer my questions. This makes the refund seem like a total scam.”
An X (formerly Twitter) user @SVRohith28 sought transparency from ACTC Events and asked, “...only 1,500 done and 1,000 more to go? How many emails have you got?” Another user @prashanthrv said, “‘Valid requests’- How do you plan to validate that? And you had oversold at least 25,000 tickets. But you’re saying only 2,500 here. Delaying the right action so that people forget is a very good strategy.”
Several X users who shared similar sentiments also took to their social media after the event management company announced that only 2,500 of the refund requests deemed valid by them would be processed, asking how they arrived at a round figure without even responding to several emails. TNM tried to reach out toACTC Events CEO Hemanth Raja for a comment but he didn’t respond. This story will be updated if a response is received.