Cancellation & refund policy

Samia’s cancellation terms are the same for every venue — one clear standard, so you always know where you stand. Nothing is committed to the venue until your booking is confirmed. After that, you pay a 50% advance to confirm and the remaining 50% the day before your event, and how much comes back if you cancel depends on how close to the event you are.

• Before your booking is confirmed: Cancel any time, free of charge.
• More than 2 days before the event: Full refund of whatever you've paid so far.
• Within 48 hours before the event: 30% of the booking value is refunded; the rest already paid is forfeited.
• Within 24 hours before the event: The advance is forfeited — minimal or no refund.

Before your booking is confirmed, no payment has been taken — cancelling costs nothing. Once you confirm, Samia charges a real 50% advance (not a hold) and collects the remaining 50% the day before your event. Both payments are held in escrow by Samia and released to the venue after your event, less Samia’s commission. See our Payment Terms for exactly how the escrow and release work.

You can cancel from your bookings page any time before the day of your event, with a reason. What comes back follows the schedule above:

• Not yet confirmed: cancel any time, free of charge — nothing has been committed to the venue yet.
• More than 2 days before the event: everything you've paid so far is refunded in full.
• Within 48 hours before the event: 30% of the booking value is refunded; the rest already paid is forfeited.
• Within 24 hours before the event: the advance is forfeited — if you'd already paid the balance too, that portion is refunded.

What’s forfeited is Samia’s cancellation fee, not the venue’s — the venue’s own 30% is never clawed back for a cancellation you make. Cancel early and nothing is kept from anyone.

Once the event day has arrived, self-cancellation is closed — the system will tell you the event date has already passed. After the day, the question is no longer “cancel or not” but “did the event go as it should have”. If something went wrong, you raise a dispute instead. See our Dispute Resolution Policy.

If you book, don’t cancel before the event, and don’t turn up, the booking still stands and the balance is still collected and released to the venue once the event auto-completes. The simple rule: if you don’t cancel before the event, the booking stands. So if your plans change, cancel — the earlier you do, the more you get back.

If a venue declines or cancels your booking before the event, you are made whole — everything you’ve paid is refunded in full and you pay nothing, whatever the timing. That protection is automatic; the schedule above never applies to a venue-initiated cancellation, and any amount already made available to the venue is reversed on their side, never yours.

Where we can, our team will also help you find an alternative venue for your date. That is a goodwill and coordination effort on our part, not a guarantee, and we don’t promise a like-for-like replacement. Contact us and we’ll do what we can.

Severe weather, security situations, and family emergencies don’t always fit a simple schedule, and sometimes a cancellation is contested — one side sees it differently. In any of these cases, contact Samia and we’ll handle it through our dispute process, where a person reviews the situation and decides a fair outcome. See our Dispute Resolution Policy.

The schedule above is the current Samia standard. If we ever revise it, the change applies only to new bookings — a booking already confirmed keeps the terms that were in force when you made it. You’ll always see the exact terms before you pay.

A refund goes back to the payment method you used. Mobile money — EVC Plus, ZAAD, or SAHAL — usually clears quickly; card refunds can take a few business days depending on your bank. You can follow the status from your bookings page, and if anything looks stuck, contact us.