DARK FUNERAL Explain METAL CAMP Cancellation

Swedish black metallers DARK FUNERAL were forced to cancel their previously announced participation in the Metal Camp festival, a two-day event held August 20-21 in Tolbin, Slovenia. The group's official statement on the matter is as follows:

"On Saturday morning, August 21, at approximately 5.00 am we, the members of DARK FUNERAL and our soundman, met up at Arlanda Airport (Stockholm, Sweden) to catch our flight to Ljubljana/Slovenia for the Metal Camp Festival. We had been excitingly looking forward to this show. Unfortunately, due to an error on one of our airline tickets and Lufthansa's complete unwillingness to sort things out, the planned trip ended abruptly.

"We had discovered an error on one of the tickets a few days before our departure. Upon this discovery, I immediately telephoned Lufthansa Airlines and explained the error to have it corrected. The agent I spoke with assured me they would change it immediately and print out a new ticket, which could be picked up at the airport prior to our departure. So far so good. When we arrived at their customer service office that morning we were told that the changes had not been made. In addition, to add insult to injury, they said that it was now impossible to change it on the spot. After a long discussion, we realized that it would indeed be impossible to have them cooperate with us to make the necessary changes so all of us would make the flight. It was just not going to happen. Since we didn't want to let down the promoter of Rock The Nation and our fans, we decided to leave the member with the uncorrected ticket behind and do the show with one man short. After wasting quite a bit of time at the customer service office trying to correct the airlines mistake, the five of us with the proper tickets proceeded to check in for our flight, 45 minutes prior to departure! Now the airline tells us we were too late to check in! We were told however, that we could get the tickets rescheduled for the next flight, but we had to go back again to the customer service office to sort it all out. Which meant we had to speak to the same agent we had been in discussions with earlier. This person simply refused to cooperate with us. We told him that the airline representatives promised us we could be rescheduled for the next flight. However, according to the agent in the customer service office this was not possible. According to him, we could get on the next flight only if we bought totally new tickets, which we would have had to pay approximately 1500 Euro each. Money we obviously don't have. So we were forced to leave the airport, dejected and disappointed, wondering why the airline treated its customers in such an unprofessional and discourteous manner, at the same time thinking of all the fans who would be extremely disappointed at our being a no show at the concert. Believe me when I say that our disappointment is just as great, and our anger at the way we were treated by Lufthansa's employees is even greater.

"As many of you might know, we have been touring worldwide since 1996. We have traveled with many airline companies over the years, even several times with Lufthansa. We have had smaller problems with the bookings before, but it has always been possible to solve. This time Lufthansa showed complete lack of cooperation and simply refused to work with us. After this treatment, one thing is for sure. We will never fly with Lufthansa again.

"We understand that this unfortunate cancellation has completely inconvenienced the promoters of Rock The Nation, and disappointed our many fans who are expecting us to play. We Hope this unfortunate situation that was completely beyond our control will not stop us from being able to book another show in Slovenia in the near future. We apologize, and look forward to another chance to play for all the metal heads there soon."