Abu Dhabi // Hundreds of people have had their New Year’s Eve party plans dashed after five major concerts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai were cancelled.
The organiser, Red Line Media and Marketing, told the hotels by email at 2am yesterday that the events would not go ahead, without elaborating or responding to inquiries.
The concerts were to be held at five hotels: the InterContinental Hotel Abu Dhabi; the Crowne Plaza Yas Island; the Beach Rotana in Abu Dhabi; the Al Ain Rotana; and the InterContinental Hotel Dubai Festival City.
Prices for the tickets ranged between Dh800 and Dh2,500 each.
“This is a big loss for us, a main event on such a big night as New Year’s Eve,” said Rima Baroodi, director of public relations and communications at the InterContinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
“It not just a loss of revenue but is was also a social event. We had rented out our hall for the event to Red Line and were handling the food and beverages for the night, all the other organisation was up to Red Line,” Ms Baroodi said.
Each hotel was to have a performance from Arab musicians including Ramy Ayach, Shatha Hassoun, Wafik Habib, George Tahhan, Melhem Barakat, Hisham El Hajj, Melhem Zain and Nassif Zaitoun.
She added that they intend to take legal action.
A spokesperson for the Beach Rotana hotel also confirmed the cancellations.
“Our first concern right now is our guests, we know that they are upset and disappointed and want to try to do what we can for them,” said the spokesperson, who said that they had been expecting more than 400 people to attend.
“Both the Beach Rotana and Al Ain Rotana are making all efforts to contact Red Line executives for clarifications but so far have received no response. We are only the host venue for the event and have nothing to do with the organising of the event and our losses are tremendous, most importantly with our guests’ dissatisfaction.
We have spoken to the local authorities and our legal adviser and hope that this will save the situation for guests and for our hotels as well,” the Beach Rotana said.
The Intercontinental Abu Dhabi said that Red Line had also not responded to their calls.
“Red Line Events have not shared details of their refund policy with us as tickets were sold independently by them.”
Red Line is not responding to calls from any of the hotels.
“This situation has only just come to light and although we have not received any payment from Red Line to date, we are working on a solution so as not to disappoint guests who were intending on celebrating New Year’s Eve at our hotel,” the Intercontinental said.
“We regret any inconvenience caused and hope to resolve this for those affected by this unforeseen circumstance.”
Ms Baroodi said that the hotel had not been able to get in contact with Red line and they had not responded to their calls.
Ms Baroodi added that they are working to find a solution as soon as possible for everyone affected.
Red Line did not respond to calls from The National.
malkhan@thenational.ae