We have over some time now done free publicity for these shows and the just ended Mario Live In Ghana Concert was not an exception. It is no news that Ghanaians always complain of not being treated well by other nationals. But then it its more painful and disgusting when your fellow Ghanaian treats you like you are a worthless and useless chap wandering the streets of Accra.
For me, I strongly believe respect is earned, so if someone disrespects you, all you have to do is to reciprocate. Why show respect to someone who doesn’t respect you?
The organisers of the Mario Live In Ghana Concert, 233 Connect are a bunch of disrespectful, confused and scamming individuals.
I will start with how the organizers of the above show scammed Ghanaians to buy tickets on the merit that, J Holiday will be performing alongside Mario in Ghana.
How on earth do you advertise and sell tickets to people knowing that one of the main performers-J. Holiday will not be able to show up.
Prior to writing this, I decided to find out from Chris-Vincent the legal implication of these things that event organizers are currently resulting to in Ghana.
I was told that, if you purchase a ticket (accept an offer) based on the fact that you are going to be given a performance from J Holiday, the moment the event organizer fails to honour that after the purchase, he has breached the contract upon which the of sale of the ticket was made…
Ghanaians are getting sick of organizers scamming us all the time by falsely advertising performers who never show up. Instead, they replace them with others after tickets have been bought (contract made). This is the new scam in town championed by event organizers and that is exactly what happened over the weekend.
Apart from scamming Ghanaian ticket purchasers, event organizers have always disrespected the media in Ghanaand 233 Connect just confirmed this. For whatever reasons, the organisers have been known to conduct late press conferences before any of their shows, the reasons has always been the same – delay in flights and all that, so we don’t bother to ask again.
Entertainment reporters are smart chaps but as to why they decide to work with unprofessional and disrespectful individuals in Ghana amazes me. Let me talk about the press conference before the show.
Late Press Conference:
Organising late press conferences has always been the hallmark of event organisers since time immemorial. Though 233 Connect are not the only organisers doing this, they seem to have penchant for that.
Did I hear anyone say J.Holiday opting out was the reason for the delay in the press conference? No way! They have done it before. They did it at Fabulous’ show and they will continue to do it.
The press conference which was supposed to have started at 1:00pm started over two hours late. For someone who goes to events, a delay such as that was normal but the events after the press conference was just abnormal and avoidable.
As at 12pm, media houses were assembled at the venue and there was no sign of anybody. Funny enough, the reason that quickly trickled in was that, the organisers had gone to the airport to pick up Shontelle – and who is she anyway? Shontelle has been quickly flown in to replace the much advertised JHoliday. Gosh! Another scam…
Shontelle Replacing J.Holiday:
Oh! I thought it was only Ghanaian artistes – for lack of respect, who can be called to join a show the same day the show was billed to take place. From Shontelle’s own words, she just received a call at midnight and decided to jump in.
Guess the reason why the organizers said J Holiday could not make it to Ghana? His wife was due to give birth…LOL…Before the organisers contacted JHoliday for the show, didn’t he know his wife was due to give birth before the show?
Even if he was contacted via an agency, this should have been known or communicated to the organisers. Why would I buy a ticket to watch Jay Z and later be told Beyonce has replaced him?
Obviously, the organisers didn’t care about how the ticket buyers will feel about anything; they just swapped the artistes with some baseless excuse. This is not even the first time, it happened during the Fat Joe and Sean Kingston show, when patrons were told at the eleventh hour that Sean has been replaced by Omarion.
This is a scam and we have to let these organizers know they can’t continue to breach contracts. Ghanaians give them their money in return for advertised artistes, a swap is a total breach and nothing less…
After Press Conference Trouble:
Most event organisers issues press/media tags or complimentary tickets to the media at their final press conferences. After the delayed press conference, the organisers with their media co-ordinator started issuing out wrist bands instead of perhaps a press tag.
Why invite a media to your event, if not to cover? It’s obvious; the organisers don’t know the difference between a ‘wrist band’ and a ‘press tag’. Let me educate them here, a press tag enables the media man to go to certain places whereas the wrist band only confers you to your seat.
If their media co-ordinator has worked vigorously throughout the publicity stages and has come up with a number of media houses to be given tags, why was the wife of the organiser present and rebelling the media over tags?
The reason why they did not give out tags according to the wife of one of the organisers was that, during the Fabulous show, media houses passed their tags to other people to enter the auditorium without paying.
I think it was another stupid excuse to mock the media. This is a blatant lie. Even if it was true, the organizers have themselves to be blamed. If you want everything free this is what you get at the end. Charter House, the organizers of the Ghana Music Awards will never come up with such frivolous excuses, because they have tight security at their events.
Even with the wrist band, instead of giving it to the media men present, they said no, the woman wanted to put it around each journalist’s wrist – as it’s done in nursery school.
Some media houses with their names on the bill were not given the wrist band with the silly excuse that, they should come to the venue for theirs.
It got more stupid when TV stations allotted 4 or 5 bands because of their big crew were refused the bands with the excuse that, they should come to the venue for theirs. It became obvious, someone don’t know the work of the media.
I asked if they expect us to bath with the wrist band on and they answered YES. Oh Ghana!
At this juncture, I gave up the Mario dream, though I was disappointed. Well besides I had seen him perform in Ghana before so what was the point?
No comments:
Post a Comment