'You're Getting a Class Action': Merlin Returns to Kosevo

Fans who were left outside the floor section at Sarajevo’s Kosevo stadium on Friday started a Facebook group called “Class Action Against Dino Merlin and the Adriaticket Company” and announced they will seek compensation in court. The first of Dino Merlin’s three concerts took place on July 31, the show started at 9:15 PM, and thousands of people holding tickets for floor section 1 spent that time standing in front of locked gates.

We already reported on that night, on two tickets sold for the same spot and on the people who never got in. Here is what happened after.

Tickets were sold by Adriaticket, a company the Facebook group links to Merlin’s manager. “Magaza” is listed as the concert organizer. Both names keep coming up in posts with the same point attached: that the man on stage and the people collecting money for tickets are not strangers to each other.

“We got through the gate, then got stuck in front of the floor”

The group was started after a comment one attendee left under a video filmed by ticket touts near Bascarsija.

“I bought four tickets at the Skenderija plaza from an official Adriaticket distributor… we were left with a few thousand other people in front of the entrance to floor section 1, because the stadium was packed and they shut the gates,” a member of the group wrote in a Facebook post.

In the same post, she invited everyone who was stuck outside that night to join her. Part of the crowd in front of the gates chanted “Dino, thief” during the show, and that clip is what set the whole thing off.

What did the organizer offer the people who were shut out?

The fix on offer was a date swap, not a refund. Ticket holders were told they could use their July 31 ticket for the concert on Sunday, August 2, on condition that they emailed a scan of the ticket to info@adriaticket.ba by 8 PM on August 1.

That gave people less than twenty four hours. And the offer was tied to a single date. Anyone who was at work that Sunday, out of Sarajevo, or simply missed the email deadline was left with no alternative, since no swap was offered for the third concert.

Military vehicles and touts before the second show

Security around the stadium was stepped up on Sunday. Several Armed Forces vehicles passed by Kosevo within a short stretch of time, alongside police and security stewards.

A different kind of business was going on around the stadium at the same time.

• at least a dozen touts were selling tickets at double the official price
• a small bottle of water sold for three convertible marks, about 180 dinars
• vendors set up improvised stalls selling cold drinks, and some fired up grills

Street prices went up after the first night instead of coming down. That is the clearest sign that demand held up regardless of the chanting or what was being said in the Facebook group.

Merlin spoke up, but not about the lawsuit

The singer posted on Instagram on August 2 without a single word about the accusations or the threatened lawsuits.

“My Sarajevo, my sevdah,” Dino Merlin wrote in the Instagram post.

Singer Senidah, who had been among the guests at the concert, commented under the post.

“It was an honor to be part of that night,” Senidah wrote in a comment on Merlin’s Instagram post.

Timeline

• July 31, the first Kosevo concert starts at 9:15 PM, part of the ticket holding crowd is left outside the locked gates and chants
• August 1, the organizer announces the fix and sets an 8 PM deadline for emailing tickets
• August 2, the Facebook group for the class action opens, military vehicles and touts appear outside the stadium, Merlin posts on Instagram

No defendant has been named yet, and there are three candidates: the performer, the company that sold the tickets and the company listed as organizer. For now, the Facebook group holds accounts, not lawsuits. The first filing that reaches a court will show how many of those accounts come backed by a ticket and a receipt.