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Popcaan, Shenseea Speak Out After Major Issues At ‘Kingston Fest’ In Toronto

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popcaan shenseea
Popcaan, Shenseea

Promoted as Canada’s largest outdoor Dancehall music fest, Kingston Music Festival promised fans good vibes and great tunes but did not deliver on Sunday.

Popcaan and Shenseea, who were billed to perform along with Skillibeng and Chronic Law, have both spoken out after fans encountered multiple difficulties when they arrived at the Downsview Park event in Toronto.  The issues included an extremely late start to the show, audio malfunctions, overcrowding, and barricades being thrown down.

On Monday, Shenseea tweeted her apologies to the Toronto fans.

“I’m sorry y’all couldn’t hear me Toronto. I can imagine how frustrating and disappointing it was to buy tickets and didn’t get what you were promised! Yesterday was a mess! Das f-cked up!” the Blessed singer wrote.

Popcaan, on the other hand, tackled the issues head-on during his set. 

“To the promotion team fi dah concert yah now, make me talk to uno clear. A lot of my fans vex and angry because the promotion ah f-ckery!” he said to send the crowd cheering.

“You see when you book superstar pon show, make sure uno fix every bombocl@@t ting you hear, you hear dat! Listen me again, you see all a dem hard working independent people yah, weh pay dem money fi forward a dah bombocl@@t show yah? Uno disappoint dem and disappoint me. If a never dem mi go a mi yaad. And uno fi know dat! Fix up uno bombocl@@t self!” he continued.

After the event, the Unruly Boss took to Instagram to tell the festival promoters to give the people a refund.

“Hear mi a say, Kingston Festival uno run back di people dem bombocl@@t money you hear!” he said.

However, in an Instagram statement published today, Kingston Fest said ticketholders would not receive any refunds, but would instead be offered a 50 percent credit to their next event as compensation.

According to them, the fence breach and crowd surge towards the stage damaged their production systems, which perhaps explained the loss of sound. Other glitches, including “short stops in the show”, they explained were in response to crowd-driven issues to protect the patrons and artists.

The organizers also explained that they had intentionally closed the bars as a result of overcrowding and “thefts from the bars.”

On Sunday, several patrons took to social media and revealed just how horrific things had gotten at Kingston Fest.  In addition to the issues noted before, many complained that there were frequent fights among the crowd while others witnessed multiple people fainting from dehydration.

“The amount of ppl I saw faint and YOU DON’T HAVE F-CKING WATTTTTTERRRRR?!?!?” exclaimed one partygoer who went online to vent.

Another said, “What a f-ckin shit show. People fainting left and right, fight broke out everyone started running, my girl got trampled over and hurt head bad, How are you guys gonna make everyone throw out their waters when coming in and SELL OUTTA WATER INSIDE!!! REFUND. You guys over sold and didn’t have security was so unsafe. Terrible.”

https://twitter.com/WomanofGold_/status/1556645421308874752?s=20&t=GkBXB_uuQStowyBI-_6GCg

Other fans complained that the gates opened at 1pm, but the headline acts didn’t touch the stage until 9pm.

https://twitter.com/girlinthetank/status/1556458671621787653?s=20&t=5ZpizrYCTRh11o-smYjrwA

Footage of Shenseea at the event emerged with minimal audio causing the crowd to start booing, and eventually chanting, “We can’t hear!”

“#KingstonFest was a joke!!!!!!! How u gonna have Shenseea and Skillibeng come on the stage and no one can hear BLOODCLOT MIC f-ckery,” one partygoer said on social media.