Some Jay Chou fans want their money back after his National Stadium gig

Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou performing at his stellar live show, The Invincible Jay Chou Concert Tour, at the National Stadium on Sept 3, 2016.
PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER

SINGAPORE - More than 1,500 signatures have been garnered for an online petition seeking refunds to Mandopop king Jay Chou's The Invincible gig at the National Stadium on Sept 3.

It was created by Mr Goh Ying Sheng at www.gopetition.com on Sept 4. He wants refunds to be made by organiser Multimedia Entertainment and for Singapore Sports Hub to "give answers for repeated poor standards of concerts held at the National Stadium". The gig was a sold-out affair with a crowd size of 40,000. Tickets cost between $92 and $342 (inclusive of booking fee).

Mr Goh, 28, was actually not keen on going to the concert because his previous experience of Chou's 2014 Opus 2 gig at the National Stadium was marred by sound which was "not clear, not sharp".

He changed his mind when he saw that the seating plan indicated the presence of additional speakers. The media producer paid $122 and ended up seated "higher than the position of the speakers so totally couldn't hear at all". He was also unhappy that his seat essentially offered a restricted view of what was happening on stage, even though it was not indicated as such.

Of the decision to start a petition, he said: "Many times, we consumers feel very helpless in such a situation. The most we can do is complain online and I feel that businesses take us for granted because they think that we can't do anything."

He added: "At a minimum, a 50 per cent refund would make reasonable sense. Technically, we paid for something we didn't get."

A statement from Singapore Sports Hub and Multimedia Entertainment noted that concert-goers in "some sections" had issues with the sound. It pointed that out this was despite efforts at improving the situation from the Opus 2 concert.

"The concert organiser had engaged sound engineers from abroad to provide advice on the sound system and set-up; based on this, the quality of speakers was improved from Opus 2 and some of the speaker locations were changed (so as to minimise obstruction of views)."

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