The night before prom the main DJ called me to confirm everything. All sounded like it was in place except he informed me that there would only be 3 people at the event (they previously told me there would be 4). Our event was on a Thursday night, beginning at 6pm. Contractually, I booked them from 7-11, knowing that most kids leave at 10:30. I was there early and the Entertainment came around 5:30 to set up, which was great. I introduced myself, saw them start to set up, and then went to finish my tasks. I didn't hear from them until 7pm when none of the kids were using the photo booth. I went over to see what was going on and the attendant told me the venue's wifi was really slow and he couldn't get the photo booth to work. Understandably, I was very annoyed. The photo booth wasn't up and running until 7:45pm, but even then we couldn't print pictures (still wifi issues, allegedly). I checked out the photobooth didn't find an option for a boomerang or a gif. I took photos (that couldn't be printed) and I went about monitoring the kids and herding them to the photo booth. I had to go to the DJ and tell him to announce that the photo booth was finally working so the kids knew. It wasn't until 9:30pm that the pictures started printing and I realized the background for the photos was not the one we chose. The kids got to use a fully functioning photo booth for about an hour before almost everyone left.
I waited all weekend and heard nothing. I emailed on Monday and was told they would get back to me. Two days later I received an email from the administrative assistant which said they did all they could, they determined they did a good job, the kids took a lot of pictures and seemingly had fun, and that was that. She also said that the boomerang and gif capability were there because there was ONE taken. I had 270 very tech-savvy teens at this prom. Clearly, it was not an easy option to find, which should have been the role of the photo booth attendant to help/explain to the students using the product. Unfortunately, he wasn't at the photo booth a lot of the time, so this would have been hard to do. Mystical Entertainment Group offered no return on our money and didn't apologize for their ineptitude. I responded immediately and asked that the manager give me a call. It's two days later, over a week since the event, and I have still not received a phone call.
To say I am disappointed in the clear negligence of this company and the cavalier attitude about their mistakes is an understatement. The manager didn't have the courtesy to even give me a phone call and responded to me via the administrative assistant's email taking no ownership of their mistakes. I'm pretty sure "connection issues" should be the number one issue that they work to prevent (maybe have a company hotspot or an IT guy that can come help them?? At least have a plan B!) but they were extremely unprepared.
I paid for a service that wasn't functional for nearly 20% of my event and didn't work to its actual functionality until an hour and a half before the event ended (an hour before the kids left). Charging full price and not delivering a fully functioning product as agreed upon is flatly unethical. They didn't deliver on their contractual obligations but they surely took my money and are trying to sweep this under the rug. This is immoral and speaks volumes about their business acumen. Not only did they disregard their mistake, they clearly don't care about their customer relations as the way this was handled was beyond poor. I don't know if it's because they feel like it was an event "just for kids" or because they aren't taking me seriously, but clearly, they are taking advantage of the situation. For reference, this is the sixth prom I have organized in my career for my employer. In doing so, I have dealt with anywhere from 15-20 different vendors. This has, by far, been my worst experience. Mystical Entertainment Group is clearly out to take money without regard to their performance or responsibilities. read more
