{"id":620825,"date":"2026-04-21T06:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620825\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:35:14","slug":"the-drop-music-festival-still-owes-ticketholders-refunds-six-years-after-cancelled-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620825\/","title":{"rendered":"The Drop music festival still owes ticketholders refunds, six years after cancelled shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ticketholders are still waiting for refunds and answers from The Drop music festival, six years after shows were cancelled.<\/p>\n

In 2020, The Drop cancelled dates in Manly, Coolangatta, Torquay and Busselton because of COVID restrictions.<\/p>\n

Promises were made to refund ticketholders by the end of 2024, but the festival’s Australian Business Number is no longer active.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

Eloise Rawson was 19 when she bought a ticket for the Torquay festival.<\/p>\n

She’s now 26.<\/p>\n

“It’s pretty disgusting behaviour that they felt they were able to get away with it,” she says.<\/p>\n

Ticketholders out of pocket<\/p>\n

Eloise is still owed $115.80 for the ticket she purchased in 2019.<\/p>\n

By 2023, she “completely lost hope” that she would see that money again.<\/p>\n

She believes The Drop was able to avoid scrutiny because its ticket price was lower than that of other festivals.<\/p>\n

“It wouldn’t have had the mass following like BTV (Beyond The Valley) and those huge events,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s exactly how this has been able to be swept under the rug.”<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Eloise joined the Facebook group ‘The Drop Festival still has my money’.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Eloise Rawson says she’s “lost hope” about getting a refund for The Drop.\u00a0 (Supplied: Eloise Rawson)<\/p>\n

It has nearly 500 members, with recent posts and comments from users still complaining about refunds and a lack of explanation from the festival.<\/p>\n

“There’s a whole community of people who have also been left in the lurch by the organisers and not knowing what’s going to happen,” Eloise says.<\/p>\n

Matt Tesoriero, 30, is also part of the Facebook group and is owed $351.16 for four discounted tickets he bought on behalf of friends.<\/p>\n

“Luckily, my friends paid me,” Matt jokes.<\/p>\n

“A hundred dollars wasn’t really worth my time of going and trying to fight this company.”<\/p>\n

Failed promises<\/p>\n

The Drop’s managing director Ken O’Brien has made a string of failed promises to reschedule shows and refund customers.<\/p>\n

The festival announced rescheduled shows in Coffs Harbour and Bondi Beach for October 2022, with a new line-up featuring acts Tones and I, Matt Corby, Dune Rats, Cub Sport and Gretta Ray.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Matt Tesoriero, left, and friends at The Drop in 2019.\u00a0 (Supplied: Matt Tesoriero)<\/p>\n

At the time, ticketholders were given the option to roll their tickets over to one of the rescheduled events.<\/p>\n

O’Brien then told triple j hack the festival was planning to raise capital from new investors to put on shows in 2023 and issue refunds for the cancelled shows.<\/p>\n

No shows have gone ahead.<\/p>\n

O’Brien promised to refund all ticketholders initially by the end of 2022, then pushed it back to 2024 \u2014 citing issues with insurance payouts.<\/p>\n

But those refunds are still outstanding.<\/p>\n

The Drop’s ABN and registration with the corporate regulator, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), have both been inactive since January 2025.<\/p>\n

Triple j hack has reached out to O’Brien for an update but received no response.<\/p>\n

Refunds a dead end<\/p>\n

Matt and his friends had already attended The Drop’s Torquay festival in 2019, so when the 2020 date got cancelled, they were hoping to roll tickets over to a future event.<\/p>\n

“At the time \u2026 it was like #keepyourtickets,” he recalls. “To try to give them an opportunity to then come back.”<\/p>\n

But after a year of waiting, Matt decided to seek a refund.<\/p>\n

“And then they would send through, over the course of probably two-and-a-half years overall, multiple emails saying that they would \u2026 do something.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A crowd watching acts at The Drop Festival in 2019. (Supplied: Matt Tesoriero)<\/p>\n

Matt realised something was wrong when the emails stopped, the festival website redirected to a broken link, and he couldn’t find a way to directly contact the organiser.<\/p>\n

“They had just pulled the pin, closed the website down and packed up their socials.”<\/p>\n

Joe, 25, also had a ticket for the Torquay leg.<\/p>\n

“Everything went really radio silent,” he says. “I don’t think it was ever necessarily out of bad faith or without a real intent to actually try to get those refunds issued.<\/p>\n

“But there was never any \u2026 answer,” Joe says.<\/p>\n

Matt and Joe had been emailing The Drop through its ticketing merchant Eventbrite.<\/p>\n

Triple j hack reached out to Eventbrite to ask whether the ticketing company is responsible for refunding customers if the event organiser can’t be contacted.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson from Eventbrite said:<\/p>\n

“In this case, Eventbrite does not hold any of the proceeds from The Drop festival; all funds from ticket sales have already been paid out to the event organiser.<\/p>\n

“We understand how frustrating this situation must be for attendees who are still waiting for their refunds. However, at this time, they will need to continue pursuing their request directly with the event organiser.”<\/p>\n

Consumer rights for cancelled fests<\/p>\n

Consumers don’t always have the right to a refund.<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a customer might not be entitled to a remedy if a cancelled event is due to “actions by a person other than the event organiser, such as government restrictions banning the event from going ahead, or an event beyond human control, such as a natural disaster interrupting the event.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Adam Glezer encourages ticketholders to keep chasing a refund from the festival organiser. (Supplied: Adam Glezer)<\/p>\n

Adam Glezer is an advocate at Consumer Champion.<\/p>\n

He says Eventbrite should be more proactive in resolving these kinds of disputes.<\/p>\n

“Rather than just completely deflecting responsibility,” he says.<\/p>\n

“[They] should actually step up and try pressuring them [The Drop] to give their money back, instead of just saying, ‘Oh sorry, you’ve got to contact them,’ and just taking their commission and wiping their hands of it altogether.”<\/p>\n

If tickets were purchased in 2019 or 2020, the window to dispute the charge with the bank is likely closed.<\/p>\n

The Drop hasn’t announced any plans for liquidation.<\/p>\n

Glezer suggests people keep applying pressure.<\/p>\n

“They’re now in the stage where they’re thinking people will give up. And the best thing that you can do is continue hounding them and making their lives a misery,” he says.<\/p>\n

“As bleak as that sounds, they’ve got your money and you should be chasing it because this is exactly what they’re wanting people to do \u2026 putting it in the too-hard basket.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ticketholders are still waiting for refunds and answers from The Drop music festival, six years after shows were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,2331,134,181356,4695,136,29364,301062,30461,3953,44318],"class_list":{"0":"post-620825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-festival-cancelled","13":"tag-festivals","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-refunds","16":"tag-the-drop","17":"tag-tickets","18":"tag-triple-j","19":"tag-triple-j-hack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}