ABU DHABI // Last night’s planned concert by the Dutch DJ Tiësto was cancelled just hours before the show was due to start.
The promoter, Flash, said it had been informed at 6pm that the planned venue, hall 12 of the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec), was “unfit” to stage the house music concert, due to a serious technical problem that could not be resolved.
Because of this, it said, the decision had been taken to cancel the event, which had been scheduled as part of the DJ’s 14-month world tour. All 5,000 tickets for the show had been sold.
Mike Tracey, Adnec’s venue director, said in a statement: “We are very sorry that this technical problem has occurred and led to the cancellation of this event.
“We will be carrying out a thorough investigation into the causes of this problem to ensure it does not happen again.”
John Lickrish, the managing director of Flash, described the cancellation as “desperately unfortunate”. He promised to do “everything we can” to make it up to fans.
“We know how many people were looking forward to this event,” he said in a statement. “We will be doing everything we can to restage the event and further information will be available as soon as we have it.
“Flash’s utmost priority at all events is the safety of attendees and under no circumstances will we risk or compromise this.
"Tiësto is here in Abu Dhabi and was ready to play and we're now working with him on potential new dates."
The DJ's tour is due to continue with a date in Athens tonight.
Beyond saying there had been “serious technical failure”, Mike Fairburn, Flash’s marketing director, declined to expand on the statement.
He declined to say when Flash had first been made aware of problems with the venue, which has previously played host to Tom Jones and Harry Connick Jr.
Whatever the cause, there was no shortage of unhappy fans, many of them out of pocket having booked into hotels for the event.
“It’s a real shame,” said Shona Fleming, 40, a human resources manager in Dubai, who is originally from the UK.
“We came to Abu Dhabi specially for this and booked a hotel room. We have been looking forward to his show for the last couple of months.”
Hamed Ali, 22, lives in Abu Dhabi but was still disappointed. “Tiësto is the number one DJ in the world,” the 22-year-old Emirati pilot said.
“I know of at least 50 people who came here to Abu Dhabi for his show only to be told near the venue that it’s been cancelled.”
He had invited five of his friends from Dubai and Al Ain to watch the show, and had made hotel reservations at Aloft Abu Dhabi Hotel. “By 7.30pm, we heard rumours that the show was cancelled and I got a confirmation when I got inside the hotel,” he said. “I also got a call from a friend at 8.30pm about the cancellation.”
Florence Hirondo, 25, had made the trip from Al Ain. “It’s pretty disappointing for an event to be cancelled on the day itself,” said the Filipina nurse.
She had travelled to Dubai to buy 13 tickets because they were sold out in the capital.
Ticketholders should contact the outlet where they bought their tickets for a full refund.
rruiz@thenational.ae
