Groban heartbroken over SA tour
2008-03-10 16:00
Cape Town - International singing sensation Josh Groban says he is
"absolutely heartbroken" as well as "pretty angry" about the postponement of his South African tour, due to local promoter Kusasa Entertainment's failure to meet their obligations.
Groban, who was due to perform a series of concerts commencing in Durban on 16 March before heading to Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and Cape Town, confirmed the tour's postponement on his official website on Saturday.
"It is with great regret that Josh Groban
announces that dates for his upcoming South African tour have been
postponed. The new concert dates will be rescheduled and announced as soon
as possible."
'Failure of promoter'
"Groban's management has been trying to coordinate the tour for
weeks, but due to the failure of the tour promoter, Duncan Heafield of
Kusasa (PTY) LTD, to perform his obligations with regard to the tour, the
tour dates have to be pushed back," the online message says.
It is not the first time Kusasa Entertainment has disappointed music fans this year.
The recent Celine Dion tour, which was marred by chaos at the Vergelegen concerts in Cape Town as well as the special Valentine's Day show in Johannesburg, was also organised Kusasa Entertainment.
According to Brian Avnet, Groban's manager they made the decision to reschedule
the dates to ensure the singer's fans have the best possible live experience.
" To continue with the tour in March would just not be in the best interests of
Josh's many fans in South Africa and we do not want to disappoint them," Avnet said.
'SA has touched me deeply'
In an interview from Los Angeles with Radio 702's John Robbie, Groban made it clear that the concerts had to be postponed for no other reason than bad organisation on the local promoter's side.
"No one is sadder than myself and my team. We are absolutely heartbroken about this," he revealed.
"Let me make it very clear that I had been looking so forward to coming back. It's a country we love to visit.
"South Africa has really touched me deeply (Groban first toured South Africa in 2004) and we were very much looking forward to this tour. I promise that when we do come back, it will be better that you could ever believe," the baritone singer told Robbie.
Anger
Groban also expressed his anger and disappointment: "I'm not allowed to talk about a certain number of things due to legal reasons, but we're all pretty angry about it.
" It had to do with our promoter that we're not working with anymore and it had to do with the plain and simple truth that from our side of things, we were ready to go.
"I'm healthy, ready to perform, tickets were sold - we sold out most of our shows - we were all set to go.
"Things were not organised logistically or financially by the promoter in order to give those concerts and so we are not able to go and it's not anything that we could have controlled," he said.
Ticket refunds
Duncan Heafield of Kusasa Entertainment has failed to respond to News24's calls for comment by the time of publishing.
Tickets sold by Ticketconnection will be refunded from Friday 14 March at Mr Price stores, a Ticketconnection spokesperson told News24.
Refunds for the Sun City concert will be available through Computicket.