Swedish melodic death metal band Dark Tranquility recently went public to warn people of Xoundforce Music Entertaiment’s onerous business practices. The promoter (headed by Nike Pan) was accused of withholding a substantial part of the band’s agreed booking fee.
The band stated:
“Despite the fact that the last D.T. tour in China took place nearly a year ago, the band has yet to receive a substantial part of the agreed payment. At first, there were health reasons cited for the delay, but after a long communications standstill, we can only draw the conclusion that there is no intention to ever pay us the fee that we’re owed.”
It looks like going public paid off in the end, as the issue has been resolved:
Readers of this site will know that this isn’t the first time bands have encountered problems working with Xoundforce / Nike Pan. In April 2012 we wrote about Dream Theatre’s cancelled tour, which was called off because their promoters (Xoundforce x Guitar China) were unable to secure the necessary working visas in time for the shows. In a follow up article (be sure to check the comments too), our Radar contributor managed to dig up a number of revealing blog posts (in Chinese) by Chen Xi (founder and former president of Xoundforce) and heavy metal singer and music promoter Song Yang (宋洋). Whether their revelations (which included negligence, dodgy dealings and unsuccessful contracts with artists including Mr. Big) are true or not, we can’t say. All we can do is draw the association between a string of cancelled artist appearances and the business(s) running the deals.
Xoundforce are one of few promoters who proactively seek out metal bands to tour China (alongside the likes of Guitar China). They have their niche, and seem to be successfully booking new acts. There are other promoters operating in China, and we would encourage artists to do a bit more due diligence before contracting with ‘the guys that do metal’, simply to avoid disappointment. And we’re not talking about the band’s own disappointment. The Dream Theatre fiasco shouldn’t have even happened. It’s a standard procedure that went wrong, and left potentially thousands of fans raging.
Don’t disappoint your fans: work with trustworthy businesses.
Here is a screenshot of the first blog post from back in 2012, which you can read here.
And the second, which you can read here.
*These screenshots are more to ensure the existence of these posts gets archived in some way.