Dear Jay Chou…
Your management’s ticketing fiasco for your Sydney Concert leaves much bitterness. Of course it’s not your fault personally. No, you would never sanction the blatant ripping off of your fans by dodgy computer retailers in Chinatown, or hike up the prices of your tickets, not once but TWICE, or introduce tickets which are about three times the price of VIP Rolling Stones tickets at the Enmore. Really cause you’re so much better, Mick Who?
When your concert was announced people with connections were already booking their tix. Unluckily I missed out, so the week public tix were announced in early April, I rushed down to FuDaChi computer centre at Haymarket. I paid for two $168 tickets. The helpful man at the counter told me that although I was early, he could only guarantee me sections 28-29 since 26-27 were all taken. But he assured me that he will try his best to put me in those sections. He hands me a paper receipt from one of those docket type books, “Come back to collect your official receipt later today.”
I went back after work (luckily work is close enough).
“Sorry, official receipt’s haven’t come in today, can you try tomorrow?”
No worries, I replied, wasn’t too unusual, I’ll pop by during lunch tomorrow.
So the next day I used my hard earned lunch time to trot down to FuDaChi (of course Jay, in your case, some hapless assistant would be given this job).
“Sorry, official receipt’s still haven’t come in, could you try later in the week.”
Okay, see Jay, I don’t get that frustrated, because I expect this of dodgy Asian businesses. So I said, fine. And then I went back in a week.
When I finally got my receipt, I was told. Your tickets should be ready to collect on the 1st of May. Awesome I thought. However my enthusiasm waned when on the 1st of May I was told to come back 1st of June. I was starting to sense a pattern here, Jay, a certain sense of ineptitude. So I leave it to mid-June to go back.
“Oh sorry, they just sent us the tickets and I’m still allocating, can you come back later this week?”
As you can see Jay, my patience was running out. So I waited…again.
After work today, I tried my luck once more. Luckily I received the tickets…but…don’t you love how there’s always a “but” when dealing with Chinese, Jay?
“Sorry but we could only put you in section 36″
“WAh???”
“Sorry, the company only allocated these tickets to us, 不好意思”
I was absolutely dumbfounded. I had to think of what to say
“But, but…who got these sections then?” I pointed to the original sections I was promised.
“They were probably allocated to the sponsors.”
What, but didn’t you advertise yourself as the “THE ONE AND ONLY OFFICIAL JAY CHOU” concert store? Did you not promise those sections when I bought the tickets. You never mentioned section 36. HELL, if you mentioned that I would have gone to ticketek, paid the extra 8 bucks per ticket and received my tickets without any hassle long before you received your tickets.
See Jay, they used your name but they misrepresented the product. The lawyer in me would have gone ALL s52 of the TPA on their asses, but I didn’t. Instead I walked home, tail between my legs, the bitterest taste of gall in my mouth and two $168 tickets, which are worth about $60 each in actuality when compared to similar seats in a normal concert. See section 1, in the picture? I got 1st row, section 1 for $120 each to see the the Chili Peppers…Chili Peppers!
Hell I’m used to being ripped off for Chinese concerts. I’m the person who spent around 1k chasing Jacky Cheung around Vegas. I can hack it.
But Jay,
this is just 太过分了, I even sat through Secret for crying out loud, doesn’t that mean ANYTHING to you? I was going to respect you at your concert but you leave me no choice but to snipe at your lack of live skills next Friday night.
sincerely,
Your ever snarky psuedo fan
LJ
