The concert was originally scheduled for September 23, 2023. It was cancelled two days after Azerbaijan launched on September 19, 2023 a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh that forced the region’s entire population to flee to Armenia.
Under a new contract subsequently signed with the Armenia Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, the Armenian organizer of the open-air concert, a little-known company called Doping Space, was to organize the show “in the course of 2024.” It failed to do that, however.
“Since the concert did not take place on time, we have already written to the organization to return the entire amount to the state budget,” said Education Minister Zhanna Andreasian.
Doping Space did not immediately say whether it is ready pay back the $5.9 million allocated by the ministry in August 2023.
About $3 million of that funding covered a performance fee paid to Snoop Dogg and his production team. Andreasian did not explain just how the government expects the organizer to reclaim that money from them.
The overall sum allocated for the live performance exceeds the annual budgets of most rural communities of Armenia. Critics condemned the government spending as reckless extravagance aimed at distracting Armenians from grave national security problems facing their country.
Government officials said that the money is worth it because the concert will raise Armenia’s international profile and attract thousands of foreign tourists. The chief of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s staff, Arayik Harutiunian, claimed in June 2024 that such events help the country become an “international tourist destination.”
The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports financed the failed concert from its special budget designed to promote music and arts with a “national basis.” It never explained how this relates to Snoop Dogg.
The rap star has had a history of using drugs. Some of his songs have drug references, a fact also cited by Armenian critics of the governing funding.
