A little background info:
My friend and I are BOTH US citizens and US nationals as well bearing United States passports. We are both solo musicians and we set up a European tour in UK, Holland, Belgium and Germany. Our first show was to be Manchester. We only intended to stay in the UK for about a week and then we were going to ferry over to Amsterdam. These were all to be non-paying gigs. We also decided to make this a vacation trip as well. There were gaps between our shows giving us ample time to sight-see. So it was intended to be a holiday as well as a tour. My friend has performed in the UK and Europe prior to this incident.
What happened to us:
In January 2011, we flew to Heathrow. I had done a little research and decided it would be best not to mention our performances. NOT for the purpose of deceiving the immigration officers, but because I read that US citizens could enter the UK on tourist OR business purposes without a visa. I assumed business meant working. And I figured since we weren't getting paid, it would be too confusing to explain the whole situation since we hadnt had much contact between the club promoters due to lack of international calls on our cell phones. They weren't personal friends, they contacted us on our Myspace pages. And its not like us visiting was a lie because we did genuinely intend to sight-see (especially me who had never been to Europe before). The immigration officer began asking us very detailed questions, and became suspicious because we did end up mentioning our intent to perform (this is all before we were detained) and because we were going to be travelling alot within the UK. We were detained and searched. They found emails that my friend printed and brought along that had all the details of our shows. Furthermore, they saw that my friend checked luggage full of CD's, t-shirts etc. Btw, we didnt have any instruments because we make electronic music so we use laptops. We were detained for about 7 hrs and during the interview, she explained to us that we needed visas to perform. We told her we were not aware of that and we thought since we weren't being paid money, we didn't need them. She also said that nowhere in the emails does it say anything about sight-seeing or visiting. But we definitely did intend to do all the stupid touristy stuff. The emails were printed just in case the club was fradulent (we've had that happen before) to prove that we were in contact with someone who booked us.
Anyway, long story short, we were refused entry. I no longer have the official document stating the refusal but two things I do remember is that a) nowhere did it state that there was any type of ban against us, nor was that told to us verbally and b) the document said we tried to use deception to enter the country. In fact, we were told we could return with the proper documents (I remember this because I remember my friend angrily replied with "oh trust me, I won't be back".). We were almost immediately flown back to Iceland (our layover country) which I found weird because we aren't Icelandic but they said they have to return us to the last place we came from. We got a hotel in Keflavik, spent the night and flew back to Los Angeles the following day.
What's happening now:
MY friend decided he wanted to go back to visit the UK and Holland since our trip was ruined. We intend to fly to Holland on the 26th of this month. We do NOT intend to perform this time. We have tickets to Amsterdam and we intend to ferry over to Newcastle (which we stated in the application). We have applied for UK visit visas but my worry is the deception thing. I understand and accept that it is the travellers responsibility to know the rules, but we did not intend to deceive the officers. We just didn't initially mention performing because again, since we weren't being paid, we didn't feel that information was any more pertinent than us going to see River Thames was. In my head, what would be the difference if we stood outside Buckingham with a boombox and performed? I wrote in the comment section that I was very sorry and I realize I made a mistake and all that. But I'm just waiting and I'm very nervous.
So I have two questions
Are my chances bad since they believed we were being deceitful even though in the app I explained my POV.
and
Since we stayed in iceland for a day, there is a Schengen visa stamp in my passport. I understand that UK immigration does not appear when scanned in a Schengen country but if they see my black refusal stamp, will the previous schengen visa help my case at all? Will the black stamp HURT my chances at all in getting into Amsterdam? I know this is really long but I just need some help here and I wanted to be as detailed as possible so I could get a better answer. Any advice/help would be appreciated.
