Cancelled show: the 15-day refund and the Saturday refund window

This is the law regulating the figure of the public show promoter and creating the Registry of Public Show Promoters at the Department of the Treasury. Its statement of motives names the problems it set out to solve: selling tickets in excess of venue capacity, cancelling without properly publishing the suspension, refunding at hours and days when it was hard for consumers to show up, and foreign promoters with no office or resident agent in Puerto Rico whom it was difficult to sue. The office supervising compliance is the Office of Services to Public Show Promoters (OSPEP), attached to the Treasury’s Consumption Tax Bureau.

The law defines "public show" broadly: any public event, whether a song concert, musical show, dance performance, sporting event, comedy or drama, presented in a coliseum, hotel, convention center or any other venue, indoor or outdoor, private or public, **whether or not admission is charged**. But it expressly excludes several categories, worth checking before claiming: not covered are public shows organized by non-profit civic groups or associations, religious institutions, political parties, candidates for political office or re-election, school organizations, or events produced by state or municipal government public corporations. Nor is any convention, trade show, meeting or seminar aimed at professionals considered a public show. Article 8 repeats those exclusions.

• Having bought a ticket for a public show as the law defines it, and that the event was suspended. The refund obligation applies whether the suspension was by act of God or for any other reason.Verified against the official source
• That the event does not fall under the exclusions: non-profit civic groups, religious institutions, political parties, candidates, school organizations, events produced by state or municipal public corporations, and conventions, trade shows, meetings or seminars aimed at professionals.Verified against the official source

• The ticket. The law builds the whole system around the Treasury-endorsed ticket: Article 4(f) requires the promoter to provide a copy of the excise receipt for endorsing the tickets, the bond receipt guaranteeing payment of income tax on the show, and the endorsed tickets.

1. 1

   Step 1: Fifteen days, with no force-majeure excuse

   Article 5 opens with the rule and its reach: **if the artistic event is suspended, whether by act of God or for any other reason, the promoter shall be obligated to refund the ticket price to consumers who bought them within a period of fifteen (15) days following the suspension date**. The clause "whether by act of God or for any other reason" is what closes the door on the argument that it rained, that the artist fell ill or that something outside the promoter’s control happened: the law excepts none of those cases from the duty to refund.

2. 2

   Step 2: Seven days to ask, and Saturday open

   The second paragraph of Article 5 protects the consumer’s time. Within the fifteen-day period, **the promoter shall give the consumer a minimum of seven (7) days to request the refund**. And it adds the schedule condition: **they must be available for eight (8) working hours including Saturday, so as to make it easier for the consumer to request the refund without having to miss work**. That "including Saturday" is written in the law and responds directly to what the statement of motives identified as a frequent practice: refunding at hours and days when it was hard for consumers to show up.

3. 3

   Step 3: Notice by press, radio or television

   The law does not leave notice to the promoter’s discretion. The third paragraph of Article 5 says they shall be obligated to **give notice of the artistic event’s suspension by press, radio or television**, and specifies that they shall give notice **at reasonable hours** in those media **about the dates, times and place where the money will be refunded**. That is, the notice is not merely "it was cancelled": it must say when and where you get your money back.

4. 4

   Step 4: Backing tracks and lip-syncing: you must be told beforehand

   The last paragraph of Article 5 is an information right almost no one knows. The promoter is obligated **to inform the public clearly what the show being presented will consist of**. And it adds the specific case: **in the case of a musical show they must inform the public of the possibility that the artist uses backing tracks or lip-syncs one or more of their numbers**. The law writes it as "the possibility", so the duty is prior disclosure, not a guarantee that the artist sings live.

5. 5

   Step 5: The bond backing all of this

   Article 4(d) requires every authorized promoter to post **an annual performance bond, in an amount the Secretary of the Treasury sets, guaranteeing the show takes place and that tickets will not be sold in excess of the venue’s capacity**. The bond may be posted by a surety company with offices in Puerto Rico, and **must respond for refund payment if a show is suspended**. When processing the endorsement, the Treasury considers the bond’s term; if the event is scheduled for a date after the bond expires but no more than the next six (6) calendar months, that circumstance alone is not enough to deny the endorsement, but once ticket sales are authorized **the promoter is responsible for renewing the bond before the event takes place**. OSPEP supervises compliance and imposes, by regulation, the fines it deems appropriate. The promoter must also supply copies of their public liability policies responding for accidents suffered by spectators caused by property or personnel under their control, and a copy of the State Insurance Fund policy for accidents to the people they employ to produce the event. **We do not publish the bond amount because the Secretary of the Treasury sets it and the law does not write it.**

6. 6

   Step 6: The promoter’s registry and licence

   Article 3 creates the Registry of Public Show Promoters attached to the Department of the Treasury and says what it holds: the promoter’s name, address and social security number, with the physical and mailing address of their office — and if they move, they must notify the registry of the change within fifteen (15) days of moving; if a corporation, a certified copy of the incorporation certificate, the name and address of the president, treasurer and secretary, and of their resident agent in Puerto Rico; a financial statement; a copy of the municipal license; and a penal record certificate. Article 4 adds the requirements to act as a promoter: being of age; holding a licence issued by the Registry, **with an annual licence fee tax of two hundred dollars ($200.00)** — the Treasury may set by regulation a lower annual tax for non-profit entity producers and for producers of free events who attest by sworn statement that no admission will be charged; and being a member of the Colegio de Promotores de Espectáculos Públicos de Puerto Rico or associating with a member of that Colegio. The licence fee due date is based on the last digit of the social security or employer account number: 1 falls due in January, 2 in February, and so on through 0, due in October. If the promoter does not reside in Puerto Rico and has a resident agent, they must state the agent’s name, physical and mailing address, phone and social security number.

7. 7

   Step 7: The ten-thousand-dollar fines

   Article 6 sets two fines of the same size pointing in different directions. The first: **acting as a promoter within the jurisdiction without being duly registered in the Registry of Public Show Promoters and without obtaining a licence issued by the Office of Services to Show Promoters, or alternatively without having associated with a member of the Colegio de Productores de Espectáculos Públicos, shall carry a fine of ten thousand dollars ($10,000)**. The second looks at the venue: **the businessperson who lends or rents a venue or area to hold an event to anyone who is not a registered promoter shall be fined ten thousand dollars ($10,000)**. Article 7 empowers the Treasury and the Registry to create mechanisms to implement the law, and charges OSPEP with three specific regulations: addressing within no more than sixty (60) days the recommendations of the Colegio’s Board of Directors resulting from an adjudicative process; guaranteeing, in the endorsed-ticket adjustment claim process, the return of the sales-and-use-tax amount for tickets properly distributed and categorized as courtesy tickets at shows where admission is charged; and allowing the use of electronic tickets (e-tickets) and analogous devices to issue tickets.

The refund is claimed from the promoter, on the dates, at the times and at the place they themselves must announce by press, radio or television. Compliance supervision falls to the Office of Services to Public Show Promoters (OSPEP), attached to the Treasury’s Consumption Tax Bureau, which also imposes fines by regulation. The Promoters Registry is attached to the Department of the Treasury. What we do not publish: OSPEP’s address, phone or form; the consumer complaint procedure; the performance bond amount, which the Secretary of the Treasury sets; or the regulations OSPEP adopts, because Act 182-1996 orders those rules but does not contain them.

• Accepting "it was an act of God, no refund": the law requires a refund whether by act of God or for any other reason.
• Counting the fifteen days from when you found out: they run from the event’s suspension date.
• Settling for less than seven days to request the refund: that is the minimum the promoter must give you within the fifteen.
• Accepting windows only Monday to Friday: the law requires eight working hours including Saturday.
• Not keeping the published notice: it is where the dates, times and place of the refund the promoter announced appear.
• Claiming under this law for an event by a church, a party, a school or a public corporation: the law expressly excludes them.
• Assuming the promoter guarantees live singing: the law requires disclosing the possibility of backing tracks or lip-syncing, not preventing it.
• Accepting more tickets sold than seats: the performance bond guarantees precisely that tickets are not sold in excess of the venue’s capacity.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Hacienda de Puerto Rico

  Hacienda

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury

  Hacienda

  hacienda.pr.gov

• Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO)

  DACO

  www.daco.pr.gov