15,000 ticket holders lose money as Candace Owens calls off Australian tour

Promoter’s 21 Cents Leaves 15,000 Ticket Holders and Owens Out of Pocket

None of the 15,000 people who bought tickets for Candace Owens’ cancelled Australian tour will receive a refund. The promoter, Rocksman Pty Ltd, collapsed with just 21 Australian cents in its bank account, according to a statutory report filed by liquidator David Sampson of BPS Recovery with the corporate regulator ASIC and dated 3 March. The report states the company had no insurance to cover the cancellation, had spent all its money, and owes more than $760,000 to creditors including employees, ticket holders and the Australian Taxation Office.

Rocksman entered liquidation in December 2025. Its sole director and shareholder, George Zacharia, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Accounting records indicate the company owed him at least $24,000 in unpaid leave entitlements. The liquidator’s preliminary investigations suggested the company may have traded while insolvent, and identified $385,000 worth of transactions that could be “unreasonable director-related transactions” requiring further investigation. Sampson wrote in his report that he would advise the corporate regulator that Rocksman had breached the Corporations Act by failing to maintain and reconcile its financial records. He also advised creditors that the company had insufficient funds to commence legal proceedings to recover money.

The Australian Taxation Office is listed as a creditor for approximately $68,395.54. Ticket holders have been told to lodge proofs of debt in the liquidation, but the liquidator has made clear that refunds are impossible. A spokesperson for Rocksman previously stated that the visa cancellation “seriously affected the touring arm of the business”, leading to significant upfront costs with no revenue, and that combined with tax obligations this created a risk of insolvent trading.

Candace Owens herself says she is hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket and claims she was misled by Rocksman. Her spokesperson said the promoter had promised to cover the costs of challenging Owens’ visa refusal in the High Court of Australia. “Candace’s team ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, as well as providing numerous loans to Rocksman to make refunds [before] it became apparent that their assurances were meaningless,” the spokesperson said. They alleged that “right up until the last day, they were still promising us that refunds were just around the corner.” Owens’ team said they only learned of the liquidation through Guardian reporting in January. An automated response from a representative for Owens indicated that Rocksman would generally be responsible for refunds.

Owens, a rightwing commentator who has since had a public falling out with Donald Trump, was denied a visa to enter Australia in October 2024 by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on the grounds that she had the “capacity to incite discord”. The decision was made under the Migration Act’s character test, with Minister Burke citing her “controversial and conspiratorial views” including “extremist and inflammatory comments toward Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities” and “minimisation of the Holocaust”. Owens challenged the refusal in the High Court, which unanimously upheld the government’s decision in October 2025, ruling that the Migration Act did not infringe on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication. Minister Burke said “inciting discord might be the way some people make money, but it’s not welcome in Australia.”

Behind the Collapse: The Men Who Ran the Tour

The tour was arranged by three men who had previously collaborated on rightwing speaking tours: George Zacharia, Damien Costas and Joel Jammal. Costas, a former South Australian Liberal party staffer, formerly published the Penthouse porn magazine through a series of companies that each collapsed into liquidation. He was briefly bankrupted for failing to pay Penthouse’s printer, TMA. In 2017 and 2018 he organised successful tours with Milo Yiannopoulos and Nigel Farage, but backed another that collapsed when Yiannopoulos, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and UK activist Tommy Robinson failed to secure visas.

Costas helped Jammal set up Turning Point Australia, the local offshoot of Charlie Kirk’s former US group. (Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated in September 2025; his widow Erika Kirk became CEO.) The pair launched Turning Point Australia with another tour for Farage in 2022. Jammal said Zacharia helped with that Farage tour and later set up the Rocksman company, which donated to Turning Point in 2023 for its campaign in the New South Wales election. Jammal said the donation was unrelated to Owens’ tour and “categorically reject[ed] any suggestion of impropriety or of receiving favourable treatment from Rocksman”.

Jammal and Costas went on to organise a 2023 Donald Trump Jr tour, which was repeatedly delayed and then cancelled after selling a reported 8,000 tickets, most of which were refunded after nearly a year of delays. Rocksman and Jammal began planning a tour for Tucker Carlson in early 2024, but Carlson instead toured with Clive Palmer. Costas then engaged Owens to speak and set up and ran parts of the tour, according to Owens’ spokesperson. Jammal said Costas had “significant input” into the logistics and programme. Business records show Costas also owned the payments merchant for the tour’s ticket sales. Costas declined to comment, and both he and Jammal denied involvement in Rocksman’s financial management.

Joel Jammal, head of Turning Point Australia and a sponsor of the tour, said he believed 15,000 tickets were sold, ranging from $95 to $1,500 for VIP tickets, suggesting Rocksman sold at least $1.4 million worth. He told ticket holders they would be refunded after Owens’ High Court challenge failed, and said he had relied on assurances from Rocksman. “I was not aware of any insolvency issues or broader financial difficulties within Rocksman at the time I communicated publicly that refunds would be issued,” Jammal said. “Turning Point Australia’s involvement was limited to acting as a sponsor and assisting with promotion.” Jammal’s podcast and newspaper were the secondary sponsors of the tour. He referred questions on Rocksman’s spending to Zacharia.

The tour’s main sponsor, bullion dealer As Good As Gold, has also claimed to be owed. Its co-director, Jarrad Panes, said Rocksman told him their $80,000 sponsorship would be refunded in 2025 but it was never repaid. “It’s like, what have you done with all of this money?” Panes said. The liquidator’s report identified $385,000 in transactions that might be recoverable if proven to be unreasonable director-related transactions, but Sampson wrote that Rocksman did not have enough funds to begin legal proceedings to pursue them. To date, no explanation has been publicly provided by Zacharia for how the millions from ticket sales and sponsorship were spent.