Cancelled gig organiser winds up

The organiser of the cancelled MBC Korean Music Wave concert, Fatfish Entertainment, announced last Friday that it would be closing down in order to refund ticket-buyers.

The event, which charged $168 to $688 for tickets, was supposed to feature a line-up of 13 Korean music acts, including Shinee, 2PM, 2AM, FT Island, Teen Top, Kara and 4Minute, at Gardens by the Bay on Nov 16.

Fatfish Entertainment posted on Facebook last Friday: "With the advice of our lawyers and other professional advisers, we have come to the painful decision to wind up Fatfish Entertainment Pte Ltd in order to see to the orderly distribution of the company's assets to our creditors, including those who purchased tickets from us directly."

It informed ticket-buyers to contact the relevant ticketing agents, such as Sistic and singtic.com, for details on refunds. For those who purchased their tickets directly from Fatfish, refunds will be managed by the provisional liquidators to be appointed by the company. It is not clear if it will contact ticket-holders directly.

Fatfish announced on Wednesday that it would cancel the show "due to unforeseen circumstances including contractual difficulties" with its co-producer, Korean broadcaster giant Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

Mr Lau Kin Wai, founding partner of Fatfish Entertainment, and MBC could not be reached for comment.

Secondary school student Samuel Chee, 16, who bought a $688 ticket from *Scape, says: "I feel sad as I won't be able to see my idols and angry that Fatfish had cancelled the concert. It's a large amount of money and Fatfish still hasn't contacted any of us who paid $688."

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Life! understands that just two weeks ago, Fatfish was selling tickets for the event through online retail website Qoo10 for as little as $88 a ticket.

A student who wanted to be known only as Ty said she had purchased two tickets through Qoo10, and collected the tickets directly from Fatfish's office in Ayer Rajah.

The 18-year-old, who says she has already received her refund from Qoo10, adds: "The office, which looked like a warehouse to me, didn't look impressive. And the fact they sold tickets at a lower price shows that the management was a little unstable. I suspected something must be wrong, and true enough, MBC got cancelled. Very disappointing."

After reading about the cancellation of the concert on Thursday, Mr Alan Chan, group chief executive officer of Alpha Entertainment Group, had said he would try to save the gig. Alpha Entertainment is the home-grown agency behind the K-pop group Skarf and had also previously organised concerts here by Wonder Girls, Miss A and Shinhwa.

But with Fatfish Entertainment's announcement on Facebook that it is winding up, Mr Chan tells Life! that this means that he "cannot take over".

A post on Facebook by Fatfish said that it has not "entered into talks with any company and has not obtained any proposal, firm or otherwise, in relation to the taking over of the concert".

melk@sph.com.sg

bchan@sph.com.sg