What’s more desperate than a singleton sitting at home on a Tuesday night acquiring crap from Taobao? A promoter doing a “buy-one-get-one-free” in celebration of an engineered capitalistic binge.
11/11 (11th November) is known in China as “Single’s Day”. It marks a period of staggering e-commerce activity, fueled by heavy online retailer discounting and widespread above-the-line promo. Within an hour of commencing, Alibaba transactions stood at around $2bn. One hour!
Demo Live are bringing Tom Odell into the region, and have kicked-off an 11/11 discount to celebrate acquisitive materialism. Buy one ticket, get one free. Sorry to all those fans who have already shelled out for tickets, who have their perceptions of value shattered, and who have likely lost trust in the promoter.
Choice fan reactions:
Translations with half-hearted censorship:
“This is f***ing nonsense. You don’t deserve our trust to host this event. How are you gonna explain to those who just purchased the tickets? Anyway, I am done with it. F You, Demo!”
“The tickets I bought have just arrived and now I am reading this sh*t…thank you, Demo.”
Why does this keep happening here in China? In our opinion, promoters should be doing everything in their powers to build loyal, trusting audiences. Yet nearly every Chinese promoter decides on the short-term gain: haven’t sold enough tickets for a festival with a week to go? Flash group buy… Haven’t sold enough tickets one month out? Cancel the entire tour. Chinese fans deserve better. The price for Tom Odell is crazy to start with: 280RMB for a guy barely out of short pants is simply too much to ask young Chinese fans to pay (and that’s just in the back – to be in the front, you have to pay 480RMB). To then shaft them by offering a 2 for 1 offer, well…
It’s irresponsible at best, desperate at worst.