Detroit Festival Faces Backlash From Fans And Artists After Overcharging White People

The Eventbrite page for “AfroFuture Fest,” hosted by Afrofuture Youth, advertised an “Early Bird POC Ticket” for $10 — POC meaning “people of color” — and an “Early Bird NONPOC Ticket” for $20, defining “NONPOC” as white people.

Now after backlash, the Afrofuturist group has decided to reverse its decision to over-charge white people for tickets. In fact, amid the criticisms, the group began receiving threats, an artist dropped out and Eventbrite even threatened to unpublish their event.

The charging practice at the concert hit social media last week when rapper Tiny Jag said she was unknowingly added to the event but agreed to support and perform. However, she said she was “triggered” once the rapper caught wind of the price differences from a friend.

Tiny Jag tweeted, “A non-POC friend of mine brought to my attention that AfroFuture is requiring non-people-of-color to pay twice the amount to attend the festival as POC. This does not reflect the views of myself or the Tiny Jag team. I will not be playing this show. I apologize for anyone who may have been triggered or offended.”

Eventbrite said in a statement to CNN that they don’t “permit events that require attendees to pay different prices based on their protected characteristics such as race or ethnicity.” 

The statement continued, “In this case, we have notified the creator of the event about this violation and requested that they alter their event accordingly. We have offered them the opportunity to do this on their own accord; should they not wish to comply we will unpublish the event completely from our site.”

The group said their pricing decision was because white people have the privilege to attend festivals in “POC populated cities”, but simply put, white people can afford tickets to any event in any city, while black and brown people cannot. “This cycle disproportionately displaces black and brown people from enjoying entertainment in their own communities,” the group said on Eventbrite.