After over a year of performing the Marcia Griffiths’ and Friends World Tour, Veteran Reggae artiste Marcia Griffiths is now quite perturbed as events slated for England this week face imminent postponement.
The four shows slated from May 14-17, at the O2 Academy venues in Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham and London have hit a standstill, as most of the necessary artistes arrangements have not been made to date.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this; I’ve never disappointed any audience especially in London because they have always showed love to me from the years of Bob and Marcia. The Promoter, Malinnga Tejan-Sie kept dragging his feet and now we have discovered that no flights, or accommodations had been taken care of.” Marcia shared earlier today in a release to the media.
The Promoters of the event, Mandinka Ltd led by Malinnga Tejan-Sie, had allegedly collected funds from the actual venue company, AMG Events, but did not use these funds for the intended purposes: artiste deposits, flights, accommodations and the required work permits.
“We have been communicating with Malinnga for weeks and he kept telling us that everything is fine and that we would be flying to England on May 10. We still could not get actual confirmations of flights and accommodations and were then contacted by AMG Events themselves, this is when we found out that the company was under the impression that all deposits were paid over to us by the promoter and that we were on route to England.” Marcia added
Set to perform on Marcia Griffiths and Friends are; Bob Andy, Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths and Tanya Stephens with a special appearance from Richie Spice. All four major artistes on the tour were prepared to make adjustment and forgo outstanding deposits to salvage the events; but with work permits not receiving the priority payments to expedited the processing and passports for the team, and actual musicians from the 809 band still in the custody of the UK Embassy overseas, performing this week is no longer a possibility.
Extremely saddened by these occurrences, Marcia wants her fans in England to be aware of what has transpired and understand that the artistes made every effort to appear.
“When these things happen the artistes get blamed and branded ‘no shows’, this affects my brand and my name and so I really want everyone to know what has happened in this instance” Marcia Explained “We are looking into postponing until a later date as these events were being well promoted and patrons have been purchasing tickets for the shows”.
This isn’t the first time Mandinka Ltd has failed to execute the Marcia Griffiths and Friend tour in England. The tour was originally slated for September 2014 but had been postponed after the promoter was unable to secure adequate financial backing.
