Help find the missing Heatwavepromoter

Wed 1st Feb, 2012 in Local News

Update: (10/2/12)
The search for missing promoter Olivier Lokolomba is over. Heatwave festival boss Patrick Whyntie has announced – “For those who have been worried sick. Olivier is alive and has contacted us. Thankgod”.

At this stage there are no further details about where Lokolomba has been since January 21st or about the $30 000 he had on him when he disappeared.

Following the Heatwave festival tour there have been several reports about the festival’s troubles with cancellations, liquor licensing and the egos of temperamental performers. Now a series of comments posted by the Heatwave promoters on Facebook have now revealed another, far more serious, concern – one of the festival team members is missing and hasn’t be heard from since the 21st of January.

Just over a week after the festival tour embattled festival boss Patrick Whyntie mentioned his missing friend in a post on his Facebook wall commenting that he is “Trying to keep it together with all the publicity and people in my face asking stupid questions all day n nite, so called friends dissapearing, girls who hit me up for nothing more than the fact im known, my brother missing with police looking for him and we are worried about the worst. Rose quick fell quicker and I’ll do it again except this time I’ll be ready to maintain it at the top. Fuck you fakes.”

A follow up comment posted on the Heatvave Facebook wall last night also mentions that “my partner is missing and went missing for the last few days of tour which really shattered us.”

Now another page – Help Us Find Oli – has been set up to help locate the missing team member – Olivier Lokolomba. The page lists Lokolomba’s details and urges people to call the police or contact the Heatwave team if they had any information about his whereabouts.

The Help Us Find Oli page links to a page for Nue Levo Beats, a hip-hop company that lists an Olivier Reckom as CEO. Reckom is also listed as the Chief-Operations Officer with the HeatWave team.

The 26 year old Sydney resident was last seen on the 21st of January at the Mercure Hotel in Potts Point, Sydney and then at the nearby Bendigo Bank at around 11am.

Update:
triple j’s Lucy Carter has reported that the Lokolomba was carrying 30-grand when he went missing. Whyntie told her that Lokolomba is “a lovely guy… we just fear that you know possibly something bad has happened to him”.

Olivier Lokolomba/Reckom
Age: 26
Height: 5”10’
Weight: 64kg
Eye colour: Dark brown
Build: SLIM
Ethnicity: African appearance
Languages spoken: English, French

In last night’s Facebook post the Heatwave festival promoters also responded to the wave of recent unwanted media attention by publishing an impassioned note on their Facebook wall accusing the media of “completely lying” about the festival’s troubles.

“What does our head in is some people ACTUALLY think we are retarded, disorganized or tried to rip people off? We worked our fucking asses off pulling 19hr days no sleep till one of us was passed out and then we switched day n nite. Now my partner is missing and went missing for the last few days of tour which really shattered us. The MEDIA never gave us a chance and rode us into the ground and now are bathing in our hectic issues and completely lying. If we just had one hell even two shows they would have been PERFECT fuck SA was sick!! We did what we did with 1/10th of the team other shows have for 1! We admit we tried too much BUT there where things such as other promoters misleading or stealing which affected us! Fuck we shelved $100,000 just to keep QLD on for the fans. To roast us alive like this just shows why the fucking AUSTRALIAN festival industry is in the toilet. Rest assured we will show every last person just what we can do on a level playing field! VENT OVER”

Replying to a fan who sagely notes that publicly airing complaints about the media isn’t the wisest of decisions, the promoters commented “we totally agree and thought about posting this. However there needs to be a REAL reaction to it not everything can just go through 3 or 4 publicists sometimes it needs to come from the heart!”

In other follow up comments the Heatwave crew thank their fans for the support telling them that it means “a lot to see real support here of course the media won’t report it though!”. The original post has so far been ‘liked’ by 118 of the festival’s 7117 Facebook fans.

The festival also has the support of the design team who worked on the festival’s artwork – Three 29 Design – who have posted a comment to report that the Heatwave crew “definitely never slept” and were “constantly working” on the festival. “A bunch of 20-somethings got together and put something on for the fans in Aus, respect them for that, even if everything didn’t run smoothly. I know loads of 20-somethings that wouldn’t bother getting off their arse for anything, let alone organizing a countrywide tour.”