Life, Linux and the Pursuit of Happiness

So I planned on going to a music festival on Easter Island called Honu Eclipse. It is scheduled to occur around the full solar eclipse in July 2010. It’s being billed as an eco friendly festival highlighting the culture of Rapa Nui. In summary, sounds awesome.

So myself and some friends bought tickets and awaited the festival organizers to announce the flights to the island. Rapa Nui National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so access to the island is somewhat controlled to ensure that the resources of the island are not over taxed. Anyone can travel to the island but they restrict the number of people that can fly in on any given day. As this event begins before the solar eclipse and ends after it, there are many people scheduled to be on the island.

Over the last three months there has been the occasional person pop up that have made the claim that the festival is a fraud. The organizers have responded to the accusations and things generally went quiet again. The problem is that things went too quiet. No travel information has been provided and the only real comment has been that no refunds will be given for tickets purchased. There is a forum area for people that have paid for tickets and the only voices that are being heard are those of people wondering what is going on.

Lack of information about travel caused me to start investigating and I started to talk to other people. There are a number of pieces of information that are a bit disturbing. First, it appears that the organizer, Dreamvibe, has not been given any permits to hold the festival. There is a record of an application but no permit has been granted. It is also reported, but not confirmed, that Dreamvibe owes a lot of money to people for events that they have run in the past. Lastly, the couple that operate Dreamvibe, Rocio Zapata and Gary Jones both have records for drug trafficking. Gary Jones in a British citizen and is no longer allowed to enter either Chile or Argentina. This is important as Easter Island is a special territory of Chile.

So I’m at the point of no flight information or explanation from the organizers and a bunch of questionable information about the organizers themselves. I had to make a decision as to what I was going to do, as did my friends. That decision is that we are going to try and get our money back through the various financial institutions we used to buy the tickets. Primarily it will be working with the credit card companies we used to see if we can reverse the charges.

I’m posting this as many of my friends will wonder what happened and I will have something I can direct them to. The other is for people that may have purchased or are thinking of purchasing tickets to Honu Eclipse. I’m not telling anyone that it’s a scan or fraud. I am saying to examine what is known and make an educated decision for yourself. I hope that the event happens and I have the opportunity to kick myself for not following through. After weighing all the information I had at hand, I came the decision I did.

If anyone from Dreamvibe reads this, please tell people what the status of the event is and get flights available. If something doesn’t change fast, I won’t be the only one taking steps to recoup money.

I was so looking forward to going to this. Maybe I’ll see you at Boom in Portugal.

Here is the page on the Easter Island website talking about some of the information above. It’s in spanish

Here is a news article from a Chilean newspaper talking about some of the information above. It’s in spanish

You can find more information on the internet by searching for the promoters names, Gary Jones and Rocio Zapata along with Dreamvibe, Honu Eclipse and Chile.

Again, I’m not trying to accuse anyone of anything underhanded or criminal. I’m just expressing my concern and hopefully spurring people into taking action. I’m hoping that the action is to get things organized and clarified so that the festival can successfully occur.