Roxodus Hitting Rock-bottom

This was supposed to be a rock extravaganza. As the date rolled closer, the built-up was getting tense, and anticipation could be felt for this year’s Roxodus event. It brought a line-up of severe heavy-weights from the rock industry, but alas, a week before the gates opened it was announced that they would remain shut this year. This announcement created questions, and more questions and answers are still not clear.

Roxodus 2019 Line-Up

The plan was to deliver a Roxodus Music Fest of epic proportions in 2019. The venue was set for Edenvale, Ontario and the dates were fixed on 11-13 July. The line-up was astronomical with names including Nickelback, Alice Cooper, Kid Rock, Peter Frampton, Lita Ford, Lynyrd Skynrd and many more.

Early bird tickets went on sale already on the 30th of November last year with much anticipation. Then it all fell into shambles only one week before the festival was supposed to happen. The apology came from MF Live towards all fans, artists and more. The reason for the cancellation was due to fast amounts of rain which saturated the festival site.

The relentless efforts from the organizer’s side failed to overcome the effects of these conditions caused by nature. No communication was made regarding reimbursement of ticketholder’s money.

Contradicting Statement Now Surfacing

Only a few days later it now seems that the initial statement regarding the rain is not holding water. It didn’t take long for Fab Loranger, current principal of MF Live Inc., organizers of the festival, to shift the blame away from the rain and right onto the shoulders of his former partner, Mike Dunphy.

According to Loranger, their responsibility included to source the funding for the festival. This was Dunphy’s responsibility, and they followed his lead. According to Loranger, Dunphy failed them, and now it seems that the concert was indeed cancelled not due to too much rain but much rather too little money.

The Accusations

This lead to an accusation which further spread on social media as gossip-fuelled by the anger of disappointed ticket holders. Dunphy hit back and stated that he already left MF before the concert was cancelled and that no money disappeared because of him.

What was confirmed though, is that the OPP are investigating someone previously employed by MF, but no confirmation would be given whether Dunphy is this former employee? The frustration is further fuelled with a lack of communication from MF towards ticketholders, who with the absolute right, demand their money back. No funding has yet been made available to reimburse these ticket holders.

This caused Eventbrite to step in with providing some form of relief by setting up a fund called the Fan Relief Program to raise funds needed to reimburse ticket holders. The response which Loranger had on this was that he was glad that they would be getting funds back, almost as if he isn’t to take responsibility for this topic. Even if ticketholders do get reimbursed, the question remains of where did the money in access of $12 million go?

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