FM station 94.9’s Wild Jam 2012 was set for this Thursday, May 10, and featured the most interesting line-up yet for the station’s sporadic HP Pavilion megaconcerts. Nicki Minaj, E-40, Gym Class Heroes, B.O.B., Dev and Neon Hitch were set to perform, with the headliners billed as “Nicki Minaj vs. E-40.” An intriguing tease, especially considering E-40’s collaboration with headliner Drake at the 2011 Wild Jam. But a tease is all it will ever be, now that this week’s Wild Jam has been cancelled. The question is: why?
When the cancellation was first announced last week, this didn’t seem like much of a story. Big shows like this can be shut down for a lot of reasons, and when 94.9 organizers pulled the plug, they said details would be forthcoming. Listeners speculated online about what the reason might be—slow ticket sales, first among them. And yet, the station’s crew has not only not announced further details since then, they seem to be actively avoiding the question. A call to 94.9 was met with the canned reply “Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Wild Jam has been cancelled.”
If those circumstances were indeed beyond the station’s control, what’s the harm in explaining them? One thing’s for sure: the questions isn’t going away. Listeners have only gotten more hostile on the topic, posting comments to the station’s Facebook page like: “So I’m wondering what is going on with Wild Jam? There is no further ‘update’ as promised…in fact any info about it at all is gone from the website. I am just wondering why it had to be cancelled. Seems like 94.9 should at least explain what happened.”
Another listener declared “Maybe instead of giving out drake tickets to new people you should give out drake tickets to the people that got screwed over for WILD JAM! Very disappointed in this station.” Yet another asked what, if anything, would be done to compensate those who had won tickets, and then accused the station of censoring comments on the topic: “And it’s weird how this post keeps removing itself.”
How this became a PR nightmare is difficult to understand. The station’s Wild Jams have never been regular events (there were two in 2008, none in 2009, two in 2010, and one last year), so rescheduling wouldn’t seem to be an issue. Some listeners seem to think that headliner Minaj pulled out, since she dropped the show from her list of tour dates, but since she could have done that after the show was cancelled, there’s no way to say for sure at this point. Minaj’s next shows are May 16 and 18 in Australia.
.Why Was 94.9’s Wild Jam Cancelled?
