A Detroit festival called Afro Future made a bold move in regards to their ticket prices. In an effort to promote more people of color (POC) have access to the event, its tickets are cheaper for those individuals at 50% the price of a ticket for those who are “Non-POC.” One can immediately see where one may raise a red flag, even though these practices are widely accepted and commonplace for gender in Las Vegas and even Miami.

The pricing offers lower rates for tickets purchased by “people of color” than it does for “non-people of color.” Early bird tickets for “POC” are $10 and $20 for “Non POC.” Later date pricing tiers offers “POC” tickets for $20 and “Non POC” tickets for $40.

The organization saw this coming, though, and put this message in the FAQ:

“Why do we have POC (people of color) and NONPOC (white people) tickets? I’m glad you asked! Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity is insuring [sic] everyone has what they need to be successful. Our ticket structure was built to insure [sic] that the most marginalized communities (people of color) are provided with an equitable chance at enjoying events in their own community (black Detroit).”

This is bound to cause a wider discussion around the country, and it has already caused an act in the festival to drop out. Tiny Jag, a local rapper, pulled her name from the bill upon hearing of this practice.

“I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial,” she told the Detroit Metro Times. I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in … especially not because of anything that I have going on. “It’s non-progressive and it’s not solution-focused in my eyes. It seems almost like it has spite, and unfortunately with spite comes hate, and that’s just not obviously going to be a good direction for us to go if we’re looking for positive change.”

On Sunday, the group tweeted that ticket prices for the two-day festival were reversed after they “received threats from white supremacists” and children were “subjected to seeing racist comments” on social media.

For the safety of our community, family, elders who received threats from white supremacists,& youth who were subjected to seeing racist comments on our IG pg,Afrofuture Fest has changed our ticketing model to $20 General Admission & suggested donation for nonPOC on @eventbrite

You can learn more about AfroFuture via their website.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.