Payment Plan Warning!

For those folks planning to use the Bonnaroo Payment Plan this year to help pay for the nearly $300 tickets, please take 5 or 10 minutes to read through this:

Below is the "fine print" that is included within the Payment Plan section of the Bonnaroo website (that includes a very unfair and likely devastating outcome for some potential "payment planners"), as well as my ranting, preemptive email to the Bonnaroo organizers protesting such a practice.

Please feel free to respond with your thoughts, opinions, critiques about both this "fine print" as well as my actions. Thanks!


Here is the "fine print":


"IMPORTANT: If, for any reason, any of your payments are declined, in whole or in part, then all of the following will apply: (i) your order and your tickets will be cancelled (ii) any payment received as of that date will be kept by Bonnaroo as partial offset for your default, (iii) you will still owe the balance of the full amount due for each ticket and you authorize Musictoday and Bonnaroo to charge your credit card for any balance due, (iv) Musictoday and Bonnaroo will be entitled to pursue all of their legal and equitable remedies to recover the full payment from you, and (v) you agree to pay all costs of collection incurred by Musictoday or Bonnaroo, including legal fees, that they may incur in collecting the balance of each ticket price. Payment plan tickets are subject to all of the other terms of the ticketing agreement."


My email to the Bonnaroo organizers:

Dear Bonnaroo Info Folks,

What's the deal with this disclaimer at the bottom of the payment plan section? I have been defending Bonnaroo for years against critics who say that Bonnaroo "sold out" and/or that Bonnaroo is "too commercial." This sort of callous, arguably greedy, and certainly "commercial" disclaimer is 180% shift from where I would hope Bonnaroo still is...

Clearly, the payment plan is a helpful tool to enable people, who have a hard time purchasing the ticket outright, to attend the festival, but it's not like anyone is doing these people a "favor". There is a charge associated with the payment plan (albeit a relatively insignificant one) and apparently a quite extreme risk potential given that you can make you first 4 payments (totaling $240 of the $290 ticket price) and have your last payment be disrupted do to myriad potential complications, only to find out that not only are you NOT going to get your ticket, and not only are you going to lose the $240 you already paid, but to add insult to the worst type of injury, you are still going to owe money towards the ticket that you are not going to receive.

This is coming from the standpoint of what is the "right" thing to do and not even factoring in the legal ramifications. I understand that once you enter into a contract such as this and "default", you lose your claim on nearly everything; however, this is assuming that Bonnaroo suffers a loss from such a default. In this case, Bonnaroo is actually getting the revenue associated with the ticket AND retaining the ticket (which, no matter what you say to the contrary, WILL be sold again), essentially a "double-up" on Bonnaroo's part. A great profiteering move if I've ever seen one. This type of practice would be dirty even if a bank practiced it, but it would be abominable if you folks actually went through with it.

Imagine this example:

Let's say that Bobby Bonnaroo has been going to Bonnaroo since 2002 and has been a “super-fan”, if you will, of the “Bonnaroo” brand ever since. Rain or shine, conflicts or none, wealth or poverty, Bobby is going to make it happen, no matter what. Let’s say that Bobby was hit hard by this recent DEPRESSION and lost his job, barely staying afloat, but he sticks to his Bonnaroo faithfulness and, based on his current predicament, decides to sign up for a payment plan instead of just paying outright as he has done in previous years.



He signs up for the 5 payment plan and makes his first 4 payments as scheduled of $90, $50, $50, and $50 (totaling $240 paid towards the $290 ticket). Let’s say that Bobby then wakes up one day to some bad luck. On his 1.5 hour long commute (a subway ride and 2 bus transfers) to his job downtown (where he works with disabled children ) he loses his wallet to a pick-pocket.



Considering the fact that, while still a HUGE Bonnaroo fan, Bobby has a life outside of music festivals (including a $1,000/month rent payment, insurance, utility bills, etc, etc), his biggest priority upon realizing that his wallet was stolen is cancelling his card so that he doesn’t lose the little money that he has left.



Little does he know that after he cancels this particular card, in order to receive an almost identical card from the bank, b/c the card number now no longer matches with the card in the Musicnow database, his 5th and final payment of $50 for his Bonnaroo ticket will not go through. He will then find out from the ticket vendor three key facts: (1) He is no longer going to receive the ticket that he was expecting in May; (2) He is not going to receive a refund for the $240 that he had paid towards that ticket; and (3) He still owes Musicnow $50 for a good/service that he is no longer going to receive…



This is how Bobby Bonnaroo is repaid for his years of loyalty to the Bonnaroo music festival…



Something like this is INEVITABLY going to happen. Does the Bonnaroo management/operational team want to have something like this happen under its watch? Frankly, I'm somewhat disgusted that I even have to argue this point to Bonnaroo. Perhaps my friends are right. Perhaps I have been doing the wrong thing by defending Bonnaroo for so long. Perhaps I need to make up for lost time and start getting on the airwaves, the Podcasts, and the internet blogs and speak my mind...

Please say that this was just a temporary mistake that is on its way to being fixed. Please tell me that this was just Musictoday trying to pull a fast one (in which case we should use a different ticket vendor). What's the deal?

If I don't hear back within a few days, I will assume it is true and will proceed accordingly.

Thanks,

Cranius Maximus