Hey… Event and promotion companies. This message is directed towards you.
It’s time to take control of your actions… and to treat music fans with a little respect. Get your popcorn ready.
As a Floridian, I was thrilled to hear that Rufus Du Sol was going to be playing in St. Pete, Florida, a city extremely close to me. Usually, I have to travel to Miami (four hours away) or Orlando (two hours away) to see a majority of the artists that I like.
This show was destined to be at Jannus Live, an outdoor venue that is pretty spectacular. It was the perfect location for a show as vibey as Rufus Du Sols’. Then… This happened:
Naturally, this was met with a lot of criticism. The Cuban Club is in a completely different city. People were not happy. Fans wanted refunds and slammed AEG Presents for 1) Moving the venue to a different city and 2) being money hungry.
The Cuban Club has received some rather scathing reviews commenting on slow entrance times, spotty bar service, and minimal bathrooms. Check out some of the comments on the pinned post: https://www.facebook.com/events/279747356022954/
And the icing on the cake? AEG Presents has not responded to ANY comments or refund requests. As a business, being transparent to those that support you by actually giving you money to support your business goes a very long way. Admit your faults, respond to people and they will see you as human and not a greedy machine. Connect with your fans… isn’t that what music is all about?
While Jannus hasn’t responded either, the bigger questions are… Who is to blame here and how are they going to remedy the situation?
Now, in comes Humans Alike. Humans Alike is the event curator from Miami, Florida that is hosting the Pryda show for Miami Music Week 2019. Tickets for the show were released today at 1 p.m. With seemingly gleaming reviews about them, Humans Alike posted this after their site crashed and people could not purchase tickets:
Fans started to blame bots as being the reason for the site crash because there was no security on the ticketing site. Humans Alike also explained that “Tickets will only be accepted by original purchaser (id required)”. Not accepting 3rd party outlets? Did Humans Alike mention this before their tickets went on sale? No. Naturally, people voiced their opinions… and they voiced them loudly.
Here’s the difference… Humans Alike listened to their fans and are working to completely resolve this issue:
Transparency and respect is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Should this have happened the way that it did? Of course not. They should have known that a Pryda show would be extremely popular. They should have taken the proper measures to make sure the site was operational before the tickets went on sale. They also should have at least mentioned their policies in the Facebook event page.
What truly matters now is how they handled the situation. Beautifully. Thanks for giving fans what they ask for, Humans Alike. It shows that there might still be some hope in music industry practices.
