People have been looking forward to the star-studded musical for years. But it is canceled and the money for it is not returned

The failure of the ticket seller Ticket Art still has its consequences two years later. People are only now finding out that the musical that the company produced, which has been translated several times, has been cancelled. Many will never see their money for it again.

The Czech version of the world-successful musical We Will Rock You with the hits of the legendary band The Queen attracted thousands of interested parties in the Czech Republic. Following the example of its foreign model, it was not supposed to be performed in ordinary theaters, but directly in large sports halls. Its premiere was supposed to take place in the spring of 2020, but due to covid, the performance was not performed and the organizers eventually postponed it to this November. Even now, however, fans of rock music will not get their favorite songs.

The company Ticket Art, which produced the musical, went bankrupt two years ago, and this musical project ended with it. But many people find out about it only now, when they wanted to go on the desired cultural experience.

Veronika is one of them. “In the fall of 2019, I bought my husband tickets for the musical We Will Rock You for Christmas. He was moved about three times because of covid. Now we have found out with horror that the upcoming performance on 11/11 in Ostrava is not taking place. And it is similar elsewhere In Prague or Brno,” she complained to the editors of TN.cz.

At the same time, she wanted to actively prevent a similar situation during the time of the covid measures. “We wanted to return the tickets because we didn’t know when it would actually be, but then they told us that the tickets are not refundable and the show is only postponed,” he recalls. “We paid about 1,600 crowns for those tickets, that’s still possible, but there are people who paid a lot more for them,” he adds.

Hundreds of people are affected

That the woman is really not alone in this is proven, for example, by the site VašeStíznosti.cz, where 188 complaints were added to the Ticket Art company this year alone, and almost all of them were due to the canceled musical. In recent weeks, several dozen such complaints have been added.

However, the chance that people will receive at least some compensation is very small. Ticket Art is in decline and even its website is down.

“Unfortunately, there are not many ways here. If a company sells tickets and subsequently becomes insolvent, the only way to get the money is to apply for insolvency proceedings in time, and unfortunately even that may not be enough. If the company is over-indebted, you unfortunately, people simply lose their money,” explains the lawyer Ondřej Preuss, founder of the Doupný advokát office.

However, it is no longer possible to register for the proceedings. The insolvency administrator Pavel Korta also confirmed this for TN.cz. “At the moment, the deadline for filing claims has already passed. Some people have tried to file an additional application, but the insolvency court has already rejected a number of them because they were filed after the deadline,” he said.

Only people who wanted to visit the Prague shows and bought tickets through the rival Ticketportal have a chance to get a refund. According to the information on his website, he is still refunding the entrance fee. This was also confirmed for TN.cz by the company’s complaints department. “We are refunding the entrance fee for all tickets that were purchased in our sales network,” they said.

Musical stars also regret the cancellation

The cancellation of the musical is also regretted by the actors and singers who were supposed to play in it. Even the end of the show surprised them years ago. “It was an exceptional work, the likes of which, in my opinion, had never been seen here before. We put a lot of energy into it,” Jan Kopečný, the lead actor, recalled for TN.cz about the preparations for the musical.

“The interruption of the preparations happened when the costumes were ready and we were going to the finals. We were all the more sorry. We expected that it would still be possible to start, they told us that the rehearsals would resume when everything was resolved, but that “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen anymore. Just recently, we were talking with a colleague, who also participated, that it was a great shame,” he added.

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