Taylor Swift, America’s reigning pop princess and writer of songs about all her romances gone bad, has just been sued for $2.5 million according E! Online. She had been scheduled to perform in August 2012 at the Capital Hoedown, an annual three-day outdoor music festival that occurs every August in Ontario. Past performers had included Carrie Underwood, Alan Jackson and Vince Gill. The 2012 version of the festival was scheduled to feature, in addition to Swift, artists like Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow and Reba McEntire.
Once Taylor Swift was announced as the headliner of the festival in late 2011, almost 15,000 tickets were sold very quickly. In early July 2012, the festival was cancelled by its organizer, Denis Benoit, allegedly due to higher than expected costs and difficulties finding a site for the concert. According to the Ottawa Citizen, Swift had been paid $2.5 million in advance for being the headline act at the scheduled concert. When the concert was cancelled, people began requesting ticket refunds from their credit card companies, to the tune of $1.8 million.
And here’s where it gets complicated. Tickets for Capital Hoedown were sold by a company called FIRE USA, via a credit card payment processing company called Evo Merchant Services. When the festival was cancelled and the credit card companies began processing refunds back to their customers who had purchased tickets, they charged those refunds to Evo. Evo then sued FIRE in August 2012 to get the money back, to the tune of $1.8 million in refunds. Evo claimed that FIRE violated their contract by refusing to reimburse Evo.
FIRE then responded by filing yet another lawsuit in January 2013, suing Taylor Swift and her management company, Messina Group, for $2.5 million for breach of contract by claiming that Swift had refused to reschedule a new appearance. Not surprisingly, Taylor Swift’s representatives say that her deal was not with FIRE (so they can’t sue her if you follow her team’s logic) and that they haven’t seen the lawsuit yet and that the dog ate her homework too.
But even if Swift is found responsible for the $1.8 million in refunded tickets, she’d still be ahead by $700,000, which is a pretty good payday for not performing. (And exactly where can I get a job that pays me for not doing anything?)
No matter what the outcome, I’m guessing we’re going to hear a song written about it by Taylor Swift sooner rather than later. I mean, the girl has still gotta make money, right?
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