Johannesburg - Just bring yourself, sit back, relax and enjoy a day in the park!” The recent Haunted Forest event at Riversands outside Fourways offered plenty to do out in the countryside and an opportunity to bring out the inner ghoul for a night of harmless Halloween fun.
If you didn’t opt for a picnic basket, you could order food and beverages from one of about 16 vendors. There were three movies and the Haunted Forest walk - “child-friendly” in the late afternoon, with the scare factor ramped up in the evening.
The event was widely advertised and tickets were sold online. Guests were told there was a cap on tickets, then days before the event, they were no longer available. However, tickets were sold at the gate and not scanned.
Inside it was chaos: queues averaging an hour for food and beverages; poor sound; not enough sweets for trick-or-treating; not enough toilets; no car guards; vendors running out of food, cold drinks and ice. The disappointment was undeniable: not only on the night, with people leaving early, but also venting on the Haunted Forest Facebook page.
Here are some of the comments:
“Worst Halloween ever. Refunds are welcome.”
“Was it not previously mentioned that for our safety, tickets were only available online? I bought tickets online with the understanding that there was a maximum cut-off.”
“Picnics in the Park, do you seriously not realise just how badly you managed this event? Just the fact that you had no control over the doormen speaks volumes. I’m guessing you had no personnel on the ground if you think capacity wasn’t reached’. What a joke.
“The event is a health hazard... massive room for dehydrated and heat-stroked visitors in hordes, with an absolute incapacity to deal with the amount of tickets sold. Somebody needs to be held accountable as the amount of visitors is dangerous.”
“Total waste of money! Your security at the door just let people in without scanning the ticket - where is your cut-off?! I want a refund! Your scary forest walk was well designed, but be more interactive! You’re meant to scare people, not make them laugh the whole way. Tonight was a huge rip-off!”
“The scariest part of the haunted forest is that I paid R180 to be there. I would list my complaints, but I don’t have time to write a thesis.”
Some people were more forgiving but the sentiment was largely negative.
“It was a lovely evening out and had a good time but the queues were a bit ridiculous. Definitely next time, I would like to bring my own drinks and snacks.”
“The (pictures) are super... Despite the queues, we had an awesome Halloween. I think the overwhelming support was unexpected and the caterers a little out of their depth xx. I’m sure next time they will be well prepared! See next year.”
I asked Picnics in the Park:
1: Why their Facebook page had said 80 percent sold out in the days before the event, but the online booking agency, Quicket, had made the peculiar statement that tickets were “booked out” (as opposed to “sold out”) but these were still being sold at the door?
2: How many tickets were sold because some said it was hopelessly overcrowded?
3. What security measures they had taken?
4. If there were additional ablution facilities?
5. Why more food and drinks were not available in light of the online ticket sales, especially since people were not able to bring their own picnic baskets and queued for hours?
6. About the signage and lighting.
7. Whether they had refunded unhappy customers.
Leone Amon, the director of Picnics in the Park, told me they had “done a great deal of work on dealing with queries and taking it offline as the social media frenzy completely took away from the actual event and the 98 percent of guests who were actually happy”.
She also said they only had 150 complaints in total and these were dealt with individually.
However, the fact that they needed to control the admitted “social media frenzy” means 98 percent of people weren’t happy.
A lengthy statement by Picnics in the Park, drafted in collaboration with their PR agency and lawyers, arrived in my inbox a few days later, saying they had dealt with all queries on a “case by case” basis.
“The Haunted Forest was designed to give Johannesburg something different to do for Halloween, a completely new experience, to which we received an overwhelming response. A 1.6km walk was designed, hand created, with the addition of three films, for when guests were not doing the walk. Picnics in the Park has run a number of events since its inception in February and has successfully entertained over 20 000 guests this year.
“The demographical response we received to this event was opposite to the usual guest trends we have come to expect at the Picnics in the Park series.
“We capped online ticket sales at 5 000 guests to provide an opportunity to those guests who wrote to us, that do not like to use online purchasing software or were only able to come on the day. The total number of tickets sold was 6 000. The venue has a capacity for 14 000 guests and more.
“Health, safety and security are important to us, two full teams of security stewards were on site. In addition to this, there were two ambulance teams on site.
“Ablution facilities are calculated at one cubicle for every 100 women and one urinal for every 400 men, taking into consideration the event period of 12 hours. The ablution facilities in the forest and main field combined were sufficient for the amount of guests over a 12-hour period.
“We had 16 food vendors... The lighting and signage was the same as every single event we have held at this venue, with no previous complaints... We requested via social media for guests to contact us directly, via email, as we prefer to deal with queries on a case-by-case basis and personally. Refunds for the Haunted Forest have now been completed within the 14-day period after the event...
“The Haunted Forest by #PiP 2017 will allow guests to bring their own picnic baskets as per all our other events, additional food vendors, satellite bars and individual water stands. A debriefing meeting has been held with all parties involved and we have created a new placement plan for next year's event. A great deal of effort and detail goes into the series and we will continue to constantly improve, create and entertain for all.”
It seems fair enough - lessons have been taken from this. However, they’re going to have to do better than this. It’s their 14th event (apparently their biggest yet) and they’ve infuriated many customers.
But they did give refunds. Consumer Protection Act specialist Trudie Broekmann told me section 47 of the act, which deals with overselling and overbooking, says if a supplier fails to deliver goods or services as agreed, they must refund the consumer.
“Section 47(3)(a) makes it clear an aggrieved consumer can claim his/her money back for the ticket, as well as their travel costs to the party or whatever they paid for alternative entertainment on the night, in terms of 47(3)(b). The claim for a ticket to a similar event is obviously not viable as Halloween only comes around once a year.
“If the supplier refused to refund the consumer, they should be reported to the consumer goods and services ombud on the basis of their contravention of section 47. Visit www.cgso.org.za/contact-us.”
* Georgina Crouth is a consumer watchdog with serious bite. Write to her at [email protected]
** Follow on Georgina Crouth on Twitter: @askgeorgie
The Star