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Tiny Lights Festival warns of online scam

A website is trying to sell viewers on a stream of the postponed event
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A Tiny Lights performance is seen here at Hotel Ymir in 2017. An online scam is selling a live stream of the festival, despite it being postponed this year. Photo: Tyler Harper

Tiny Lights Festival isn’t being held this year, but that’s not stopping a website from trying to trick viewers into watching a live stream of the popular Ymir event.

Carla Stephenson, the festival’s executive director, says some Facebook pages are directing visitors to a website advertising a stream of Tiny Lights, which was set to run June 12 to 14 this year before being postponed by COVID-19 crowd restrictions to 2021.

“It’s really unfortunate, because people have been scammed in our area,” said Stephenson, who said she found out about the scam Wednesday morning when a patron said they were looking forward to the live stream.

The patron was charged $2.95 on a credit card to register to a subscription service. Stephenson said the person later had to cancel their credit card to remove the subscription.

Facebook has also yet to respond to Stephenson’s requests to remove the pages. Stephenson said the festival is planning still events for 2020, but that they will be free and won’t require credit cards to access.

Tiny Lights is the biggest event of the year in the small town of 245 people. It was also the first in B.C. to announce in March it would be postponed for the year.

The scam, Stephenson said, is just the latest development in what has been a difficult year for the B.C. music industry.

“It’s already been terrible. The entire industry has collapsed,” she said.

Related:

Ymir’s Tiny Lights Festival postponed to 2021

@tyler_harper | tyler.harper@nelsonstar.com
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Tyler Harper

About the Author: Tyler Harper

I’m editor-reporter at the Nelson Star, where I’ve worked since 2015.
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