ELVENKING Explain Non Appearance

Sadly Elvenking were unable for a second time to play their UK dates and following some negative comments and abuse aimed at them, they felt they had to explain the reasons for the their non attendance in full. They posted the following statement on their facebook page:

"We are sorry to announce we were not able to play the UK shows as planned this week, for reasons that go beyond our will and control. Unfortunately, the promoters didn’t show any respect and/or any kind of professional behaviour towards us. These shows had already been cancelled in September 2013, and that caused us a big loss of money; nevertheless, we decided to cover those costs ourselves, with the promise of a better situation for the re-scheduled February gigs. After months of silence, unanswered mails, not a single piece of information, plan or time schedule, we read on Facebook that the Dublin show was cancelled and nobody had the good sense to let us know. Once asked what was happening and why nobody was telling us anything about this gig, the promoters decided not to pay the agreed amount of money that would have covered our costs for getting there.

Our agency informed us that the advance payment, which was agreed from both sides, and which we needed to buy our flight tickets, was late. Furthermore, the contract hadn’t been signed (until the last minute) by the promoter, and the promoter informed our agency, that they didn´t have money to pay right now and that they have to wait for the money from the ticket sales. In other words: If the sales are bad (and no one ever told us how the sales were), we might end up paying again.

Everybody expects that bands are on time, that their equipment is in good condition, that they rehearsed their songs and perform as good as they can. And of course, every band is trying to do all this, ‘cause it is every bands wish to be good, and professional so that the fans enjoy their shows. Why can´t all these bands expect the same enthusiasm from the people behind the scene?

A show got cancelled on the upcoming tour and nobody even told us. And once we found out, we were told that it is up to us to step back from what everybody agreed on and pay.

This is simply not acceptable for us and with sad heart we had to cancel our presence in the UK…ONCE AGAIN! We usually don’t like to talk business, especially not publicly, but after reading some really nasty things about us and our involvement in this, we feel the need to tell everybody what really happened. We just couldn’t afford to risk a deeper loss of money. We are deeply sorry to all the fans who have waited so long for these shows to happen…, but it seems we simply got offered this opportunity by the wrong people. We promise we will work hard to get to the UK as soon as possible!"