'Rip-off' fury as 2,000 gatecrash 'Dallas' reunion

A weekend event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of TV soap Dallas created a drama worthy of the Ewing family itself after fans who paid hundreds to meet the cast got nowhere near them, while others mingled with stars for just €75.

The furore happened partly because hundreds more people than expected turned up for Saturday night’s barbecue and cast reunion at the famed Southfork Ranch in Texas.

The event’s organisers and Southfork chiefs are blaming each other for allowing the gatecrashers in.

“It was a huge letdown – totally not worth it. I do feel like I got really ripped off,” Elizabeth Knight, who paid €305 in anticipation of meeting the cast, told Dallas-Fort Worth television station WFAA.

“It was a disaster. It was total chaos,” said Mickey James, 50, from Irving, Texas, who paid £312. “We couldn’t even get close to the stage. It was like a slap in the face.”

Fans had paid between €75 and €750 for tickets, with those who paid higher prices promised greater access to “JR” Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, Patrick Duffy and others.

Jason Hardison, the event’s executive producer, said instead of the 2,000 people expected, 4,000 arrived to celebrate one of the most popular prime-time soap operas in TV history.

Viewed panoramically in the show’s introduction, the ranch is in the Dallas suburb of Parker, about 25 miles north of Dallas.

“I’m brokenhearted about what happened and I feel like the fans were cheated out of what was promised to them,” said Mr Hardison.

“I felt like the beautiful party that was promised and planned was completely stolen by just a blatant lack of competence on the part of the property owners.

“I’m working on how they (the fans) can be reimbursed. They deserve that. They did not deserve this disappointment.”

But an official with the management company that runs Southfork said it provided only off-duty police officers in the area where alcohol was served and anything beyond that was the responsibility of organisers.

Mr Hardison was in charge of the event and would have been in charge of the rest of the security, including the gates, said Darla Cook, vice president of public relations of Arizona-based Forever Resorts.

Ms Cook also disputed Mr Hardison’s crowd estimate, saying there were between 1,500 to 2,000 people there. She said it probably felt like more because Mr Hardison’s staff were not controlling what areas of the event fans were able to access.

But €75 ticketholder Joy Garcia said she was overjoyed to “get the same access that everyone else did”.