Monster truck lovers who turned up to a live show expecting to see an extravaganza of wild flips and tricks are demanding a refund after what has been described as a disappointing rip-off.
The sold-out Monster Trucks Extreme show, in Tauranga, on Saturday night was tipped to be a huge not-to-be-missed event; with colourful posters splashed on social media for weeks.
Instead, people reported an underwhelming event that resulted in some families leaving the stadium early.
But the promoter has hit back, defending the show and blaming inadequate facilities for some of the critics’ main gripes.
At $186.50 for a family pass, it was a night that proved too expensive for those who felt the show had not delivered.
Tickets for an adult cost $63.50. Tickets for children (aged 2 to 14 years old) were $37.88 each.
Mum Stacey Brayshaw said her family scraped together money for the tickets to celebrate her son’s birthday.
“Bikes just kept doing the same thing over and over there was literally only like 10-15 mins, if that, of them doing anything [and] we spent the rest of the time waiting for them to do anything else,” she said.
Brayshaw said in her opinion the show was “mediocre”. When the monster trucks did do jumps, ramps were in the way and they were not fully visible to some in the crowd.
Additionally, a yellow van that blew flames from its rear “smoked out the crowd” and the other entertainment which included small children “riding around in circles” was disappointing.
“We kept telling the kids they were just practising, they will start soon,” she said, claiming her kids aged 3 to 13 were “incredibly bored”.
The PA system then died, leaving attendees wondering if the “mediocre” show was over.
“People started leaving like 30-45 minutes in, it was absolutely disgusting, we paid $200 to sit and wait and watch the trucks drive in circles a couple of times,” Braysaw said.
“We scraped and went without for our son to have a good birthday and we all walked away angry, upset and in complete disbelief.”
Another disgruntled attendee, Christopher Graham, also called the show “disappointing”.
“What a disappointing event at the Monster Trucks at Bayfair, the clear lack of any type of entertainment value and poor planning leaving my fellow Kiwis walking out in disappointment,” Graham said.
In his opinion, it was a “complete and utter waste of money - three monster trucks, one at a time every 10 minutes, driving a 100m stretch and jumping over a car three or four times”.
The event was part of the Monster Truck & FMX Spectacular New Zealand Tour taking place around parts of the country from this month through to April.
Last night’s show was at the Trustpower Baypark Arena in Tauranga.
Both Brayshaw and Graham have attempted to leave complaints and reviews on the Monster Truck & FMX Spectacular, but found it had turned off the ability to do so.
Event promotor Clive Featherby said the company had done “nothing wrong”.
“We run a fantastic world-class show, maybe all the toothless keyboard warriors should look into what really happened before shouting off their threats and obscenities,” Featherby told the Herald.
“I have seen comments where the trucks just drove around driving over cars?? Wtf else are they supposed to do?”
He put most of the blame on the Trustpower Baypark Arena, saying the event organisers had no control over the lack of food, the eftpos machines not working and the PA system failing, which featured in much of the disgruntled customers’ complaints.
“Why are we being persecuted? Because we are the promoters we are an easy target,” Featherby said.
Featherby said the show would fulfill its commitments to the end of their New Zealand tour, which includes three more shows across the country, then “you can shove the rest of NZ for this year and the following two years”.
Trustpower Baypark chief executive Chad Hooker said except for an equipment failure with the PA system, the venue largely operated as expected.
“An amplifier powering the stadium PA system failed about an hour into the event and our team worked hard to get the system working again,” Hooker said.
“We acknowledge that this had an impact on the quality of the experience for patrons and apologise for this. We will be working to ensure this issue doesn’t occur again in future.”