Garden of Lights organiser rubbishes scam rumours

The organiser of the Christmas Luminosity and Market event on Saturday rubbished rumours of the Port Elizabeth event being a scam, calling it “competitive slander”.

The Christmas-themed event, set for December 6-8 at Victoria Park, launched with a scaled-down display of what festivalgoers have been promised for the main event.

Potential customers expressed fears that they may not get their money’s worth after Facebook posts calling the event a scam surfaced.

Some accused the event organisers of false advertising for allegedly lifting broadcasting images  off Google to advertise the event.

However, organiser David Huni said the images used were a mix of photos taken at their previous events in Johannesburg and Durban and some they had received from equipment suppliers  abroad.

“The photos that people were worried about are from our supplier to show the equipment [in action].

“Everything that we use in the pictures is what people will get,” Huni said.

He hosted a media launch of the event to give a sneak peek into what families and festivalgoers can expect in December.

The launch was also open to a limited number of families who wished to witness the reality of the event  to calm their fears. 

“What we have set up for tonight is just a teaser to show what we can do, but we are going to bring a lot more equipment for the actual event in December.

“We have recently received new equipment and about 80% of the equipment we’ll be bringing is brand new and has never been used in any other city before,” Huni said. 

Huni’s events have been surrounded by controversy, with similar events either having  been cancelled or receiving negative reviews from some customers.

Howler in August pulled out as the contracted ticket seller for Huni’s Enchanted Forest of Lights events in Bloemfontein and Cape Town.

Thabo Lehan, of Howler, said Howler had decided to end its association with the event after it received  complaints from disappointed customers.

“There were security concerns — security was not up to scratch and the lights were not great. It was very dark,” Lehan said.

The event was ultimately cancelled and Howler put out a statement of its own, offering to refund ticket holders.

However, Huni said the Bloemfontein event had fallen through after the SA National Biodiversity Institute  was pressured by negative publicity into cancelling its contract. 

“We were [meant to] use the same company who gave us the venue in Johannesburg and Pretoria for Bloemfontein, but they backed out because the event was getting negative publicity.“But sometimes it’s conspiracies by competitors because everything we had for those events was new and even better than what we have here,” Huni said.

In 2016, Huni organised the Dino Expo in Walmer Park, which was also cancelled after being criticised by customers, who called it a rip-off and demanded their money back.

Huni said the 2016 event had failed due to insufficient equipment but that the issue had been resolved with the purchase of new equipment.

“The mistake we did with the [2016] show was that we had two exhibitions happening in PE and East London concurrently and people were not happy because there wasn’t enough equipment, but now we have received a lot more equipment and we’ll be bringing the show back to Port Elizabeth,” he said,

Huni, who has been in the business for more than five years in SA, said he welcomed constructive criticism and would continue with the events out of passion.