Entertainment agency boss Jason Wright has promised to refund all those who paid £20 a head to see spiritualist Derek Acorah who pulled out of his Wisbech St Mary show at the last moment.
Mr Acorah had arrived at the community centre and was ready to go on stage but left in a hurry in a dispute over payment.
It meant Mr Wright was left to try and explain to hundreds of angry fans why Mr Acorah had suddenly fled – with question marks over ticket refunds.
Mr Wright sought to clear up some of those issues by advertising on Facebook over the weekend that he would be at Community House, Southwell Road, today to return monies owed to paying customers.
However he refused to comment on what went wrong, and Mr Acorah has pulled a statement from his Facebook page in which he blamed Mr Wright for the dispute.
Mr Acorah initially issued a statement pointing out that the show was arranged by a private individual operating as an entertainment agency.
“An agreement was made for a set fee payable to Derek, agreed by parties,” said the statement.
“Unfortunately the agent was seriously in breach of the contract/agreement and had misappropriated the money taken for tickets for his own private use. Derek is very disappointed by the way the agent has acted towards the public.
“For those who have paid for a ticket please contact the promoter direct who had your money. I am sorry for anyone who went to attend but we will not allow Derek to be treated like this.”
The statement was amended a short while afterwards with the announcement that “it has come to our attention that the promoter has told people Derek never showed up. “This is not true. Derek was at the venue from around 5.30pm. Also we are told Derek has driven off with £3,000, again this is not true.”
By today the statement had been pulled and substituted with a short announcement that “the matter is now in the hands of our lawyers together with all the comments and allegations made from the original post. The matter is now in litigation”.
Mr Wright said: “Unfortunately I am not at liberty to give anymore information. Whilst there is a dispute I am prepared to refund all monies on production of tickets.
“I did refund as many tickets as possible on Saturday.”
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