Tickets reserved for the homeless to Paul McCartney’s Australian tour were reportedly given to the leader of the Salvation Army’s daughter.
It has emerged that seven tickets were directly given by The Beatles fanatic Chris McDonald for members of the homeless community, however, the leader of the organisations daughter received two of the tickets instead.
The gig took place at the AAMI Park in Melbourne on December 5th, but two of the seven ticketholders were unable to attend at the last minute, thus returning their tickets to the organisation.
Ash Nottle, daughter of the Salvation Army leader, Brendan Nottle, received the two returned tickets, heading along to the show with her partner, where Mr. McDonald spotted them on the Salvation Army’s Facebook.
The Salvation Army stand by their actions, claiming they rang around and most people were unable to attend last minute, with a manager making the decision to pass them on to Nottle’s daughter instead.
The leader also claimed the condition attached to the tickets was that Ms. Nottle would ‘look out’ for the other five homeless people who also attended the gig.
The Salvation Army are now set to reimburse Mr. McDonald for all seven tickets according to their chat with 3AW, but not before adding that concert tickets are not an ‘appropriate’ donation for the homeless.
Seriously!!! @PAULMCCARTNEY is HERE!!!! 🙌 #AAMIPark #OneOnOne pic.twitter.com/lqgr8zkXxy
— AAMI Park (@AAMIPark) December 6, 2017
“When you’re working with homeless people, to be blunt, do homeless people need tickets to Paul McCartney or do they need a roof over their head? Do they need assistance with mental health issues or trauma or do they need food in their belly? I think the answer’s pretty obvious.”
They also went on to say that sometimes they ‘get it wrong’ but that they have learned from the experience.
Meanwhile, Mr. McDonald maintains that the organisation could have let him know the two tickets were returned before giving handing them out to non-homeless.
Claiming he saved for a full year to purchase them in the hope he could ‘share the magic’ of the gig with people who may ‘need a lift’ and to remind them they are included in all the wonderful things in the world.
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Feature Image: Twitter
