The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) has now summoned the organisers of the Blankets & Wine Festival, an event founded by rapper and cultural entrepreneur Muthoni Ndonga, popularly known as MDQ, following a formal complaint lodged by a concertgoer two months ago.
In the complaint filed by lawyer Francis Wanjiku, Blankets & Wine and its sister company, GoodTime Africa, are accused of failing to deliver on the experience promised to paying fans in the September 28 edition.
When the dispute first surfaced in October, CAK director-general David Kemei confirmed to Nation that the Authority had received the complaint and was “reviewing” it as part of its preliminary investigations.
In a letter dispatched to Francis this week and seen by Nation , CAK revealed that it had formally summoned the Blankets & Wine organisers, including MDQ, to appear before the authority as investigations intensify into what went wrong at the much-criticised event.
“We will provide an update once the preliminary assessment of your complaint is finalised,” reads part of the letter signed by Ronald Okong’o of the CAK Consumer Protection Department.
This comes just two weeks after MDQ held a press conference at the Nairobi Street Kitchen, where she said she had not received any summons.
“We have officially not received any legal summons. We learned of this information through the media. Should we receive any notice from the Authority, we will follow due process,” she said.
“Our legal team reached out to the Competition Authority, and they said they received thousands of vexatious claims. When you make a complaint, you have to back up your complaint, and they give you time. Yesterday was the lapse of 30 days. They don’t have a full-on complaint, so there’s no investigation and there’s no suing,” said Muthoni, adding that anyone who felt they did not get what they wanted was very much in their right to seek redress.
“If you’re p***ed off that there’s no network, Kenyans, we know who owns networks. Who would be complaining to? If there’s a slow payment, we deeply regret it. But you work for months, bring in the right stakeholders...but because you’re the person putting things together, you’ll catch flak for the things that are not yours and also for things that are ours,” said Muthoni at the October 29 press conference.
However, the team acknowledged the challenges.
“There are things we are trying to build for future editions. For example, in the last edition, we had very long bar queues, but this is because we are trying to develop a system that can help us keep a digital account of our stock and process payment faster. The challenges make us better,” Justine Mbugua, head of festivals at GoodTimes Africa, said, adding, “People should understand, we’re not a concert. A festival has all these different elements that bring it to life.”
In his complaint, Francis is seeking full refunds for all attendees, arguing that ticket holders were subjected to an experience far below the advertised ‘premium standards.’ He is also seeking compensation for affected revellers.
Attendance at the festival is estimated to have been between 8,000 and 20,000, based on figures from a PR agency involved in the event and a ticketing insider.
Ticket prices ranged from Sh5,000 for regular entry to Sh12,000 for the ‘Soft Life’ VIP experience, while the lavish Hennessy Terrace package went for Sh60,000 for a group of four.
In response to the online uproar that followed, the organisers acknowledged several operational failures after conducting an internal audit. Among the issues cited were digital payment congestion, inadequate bar staffing, and a poorly configured VIP layout, and they pledged improvements ahead of the December edition.
Should CAK find Blankets & Wine guilty of violating consumer protection or competition regulations, the festival could face a penalty of up to 10 percent of its gross turnover from the previous year, a potentially hefty fine for one of Kenya’s most recognisable and long-running festivals.
