Centre Street Social: Refund Update

In case you missed it in your inbox, here's the official explanation on what went down, and how to get your refund (if applicable):

Greetings from the Centre Street Social team.

On behalf of all the members of [KONTROL] (San Francisco), Particle People (Minneapolis),
Beretta Music (Detroit), & Humanaut (Pittsburgh) we would like to
sincerely thank each of you for your interest in, and support of, the
event that was the Centre Street Social.

You are receiving this email because you are a presale ticket holder
that was not admitted to our event held on May 29th, 2010. We feel you
are owed an explanation as to the events of the night, so we are
sending you this official communication. My name is Ryan Walsh, and I
represent the door management for the evening.

So, here goes.

On Sunday May, 30 after a smooth start to the event and a party that
was really starting to go off, the CSS team was informed by the
Detroit Police Department at 3:00am that the venue was to be checked
to ensure capacity. The line was halted briefly while we could ensure
a safe, legal capacity for all presale ticket holders not yet in the
event. After approximately 10 minutes, it was confirmed we would not
exceed capacity with presale ticket holders, and we began once again
letting presale ticket holders in. At 3:30am, we were visited by our
first of three sets of police officers from the Detroit PD special
operations team. The line was requested to be halted until they had
finished their inquiry. Also, immediately before they arrived, there
was a reported shooting near Hart Plaza.

Between the three sets of officers, the Fire Marshall, and assorted
other police officials, they inquired about the following:

1. Our status as a legal venue
2. Our status as legally able to sell alcohol until 2:00am
3. Whether we were within legal capacity

After approximately 45 minutes, we were able to justify, to the lead
officer's liking, our legal status in each of these areas. Within that
time frame, a second shooting was reported near the Oslo and Vain
nightclubs, where other DEMF after parties were being held. As the
next wave of officers replaced those who left to handle the shooting,
the venue management was informed that although no legal citation was
to be issued, the officers wanted the music to stop and the partygoers
did not have to disburse. Although we felt we were within the law and
we did request calls to be made to higher officials (which they were)
to receive a final confirmation on our status, we were informed that
the police at the time of visit "are within their legal right to stop
an event from happening if they feel the event is unsafe in any way."
We still have no idea as to how they felt we fit this criteria, but
arguing had proven futile, and they told us to turn the music off.
Thus, the party was disbursed until 6:00am and I made an announcement
to return at that time to hear Daniel Bell's morning set. etc.. Soon
after, the Detroit PD arrived again and warned us to not restart the
event. At that point, Centre Street Social was closed.

We feel we tried every legal argument to maintain the event, but your
safety and protection from harassment by the police are our primary
concern. We felt if we did not shut down per the PD's request, the
police would cause the event goers undue duress and we wanted a
peaceful, safe resolution free of legal action.

As of today, we still do not have an official word from the venue or
Detroit PD as to the cause of our shut down and we are actively
pursuing an official statement. We will share it when we get it. We
can tell you that we'd heard every other event in the vicinity was
shut down as well, seemingly regardless of legality. Thankfully, ours
was one of the last.

Please do know this. We are a group of 20+ best-intentioned
promoters, music lovers, DJs, and dancers from around the U.S. who
gave it everything we had to produce a safe, legal, and top quality
event for Detroit and all the Movement attendees from around the
world. Contrary to some disheartening accusations which have appeared
on message boards, etc., we are not a bunch of wealthy amateur promoters.
We would never try to exploit or rip off anyone, in any way. To us, our good reputations
are paramount. We just wanted to throw a great party, and scraped up
the substantial funds required to do so from our personal savings. We
exchanged literally thousand of emails, brought in sound and lighting
from across the U.S., and assembled the best group of performers and
support team we possibly could. Ultimately, our event being shut down
was nothing more than unfortunate luck, which resulted in thousands of
dollars in lost revenue and obviously great disappointment from all
sides.

We can assure you, no one was more heartbroken than us.

That being said, we are people of integrity that keep our word and
always try to do what's right. Thus, we would like to offer the
opportunity for any unsatisfied would-be attendees to be compensated
for not making it in. This is only available to you if you have an
unchecked-in ticket purchased from Showclix.

Here are your options:

1. You can trade your ticket for a Guestlist/VIP spot at any of the
events thrown by the teams involved in this production. We'll be
liberal in our application. Whether it be SF, Minneapolis, Detroit,
Pittsburgh, or some combination thereof, we'll take care of you. Our
goal is to support you for supporting us. We're a family. Also, we'd
love to meet you in person to thank you and share a few stories.
Contact info for each crew can be found through any of our respective
websites. You guys all know about that "Google" thingy, right? ;)

2. You can email me, Ryan Walsh, at localbyproxy@gmail.com and I'll
check to make sure you qualify for a refund, and if so, issue one on
your behalf. YOU MUST DO THIS BY TUESDAY, JUNE 15th, 2010 at 5pm EST!
If you don't email us by then, option 1 will remain available
indefinitely.

3. You can try your best to sympathize with our situation, chalk it
all up to "sh*t happens", and choose to do nothing. In doing so,
you'll save yourself some extra hassle, show support for what we tried
to pull off with the best of intentions, and help ease the financial
loss we've incurred by this most unfortunate situation.


Again, we sincerely apologize for this turn of events, and thank you
for your support. We hope to see you at one of our events in the
future. Our beliefs are in solid sound, solid production, solid
talent, and a solid crowd. We need you for that.


Best,

Ryan Walsh on behalf of the entire Centre Street Social family