S'pore man has 6-month email exchange because of bad Jay Chou concert, completely not worth it

That's a long time.

Nyi Nyi Thet | March 02, 2017, 06:49 PM

Remember how angry some people were with the sound systems during the Jay Chou concert back in 2016?

No? That is perfectly understandable, it has been almost six months since the September 3 concert.

But while most complaints might have fizzled out after a few weeks, one resolute man has been carrying on the conversation throughout these six months with Multimedia Entertainment, the organiser of the Jay Chou concert.

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The email quest begins

We begin this colossal email battle on Sep. 8, 2016. By then, initial pleasantries had already been established.

Sep. 8, 2016

The email on Sep. 8 basically highlighted three points the disgruntled concert goer, Goh, wanted a bit more clarification on.

1. Were they aware of the issues surrounding the concert, specifically the poor sound quality? (Acknowledging a problem.)

2. How many concerts had they organised prior to the Jay Chou concert? (To determine if inexperience was the reason for the hiccups.)

3. Were they going to get refunds? ($$$)

And that's it.

Those three questions would take Multimedia Entertainment and Goh on a six-month journey through the recesses of time and space.

1. Were they aware of the issues surrounding the concert, specifically the poor sound quality?

The reply to this question would have been settled with a quick "Yes".

Here is their first and only attempt at answering this question:

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So, no.

1. Were they aware of the issues surrounding the concert, specifically the poor sound quality? (Acknowledging a problem.)

2. How many concerts had they organised prior to the Jay Chou concert? (To determine if inexperience was the reason for the hiccups.)

3. Were they going to get refunds? ($$$)

2. Prior experiences

Now, Goh didn't spend much time harping on this, and quickly moved on to the second point —

What were their prior experiences staging concerts?

His question was expressed through three unanswered emails within the span of a week, before they gave a semblance of an answer:

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Now, keep in mind the phrase "it will not take several months to finish our evaluation." This will come in handy later.

But back to the issue of experience.

They claimed they had "many years of putting together Asian concerts, cultural and family related shows".

Which is technically true.

But if you take a quick look at their website, you will see this:

Screenshot from Multimedia Entertainment website Screenshot from Multimedia Entertainment website

"As from 2013, we have also started organising concert performances for both local & overseas popular singers & artistes and joint productions with overseas production house in movies & drama series."

Most people would describe the period of 2013 to 2016 as "a couple of years", maybe "a few" if you want to make it a bit of a stretch — but calling it "many" would be slightly more than that.

A point Goh quickly pounced on in his next email:

Sep. 23, 2016

"As mentioned previously, your company core business is not in organising concerts, and has only started doing so since 2013, how does that add up to "many years" of putting together concerts?

It seems like your company is very unwilling to tell us the track records of the concerts organised. Do allow me to put it in simple English, LIST some of the concerts Multimedia Entertainment has organised besides Jay Chou's concerts, so that we know that the unacceptable standard at 3rd September Jay Chou's concert is not a result of lack of experience."

A fair enough request — just show a list of your previous works.

Not to Multimedia Entertainment apparently, who sent over this reply:

Sep. 29, 2016

Thank you for your patience.

Though Multimedia Entertainment started in 2012, the organising team had many years in the entertainment industry and experience in events, genres of which we mentioned in our previous email. We will not be listing down these events and we will also not comment further about our experience.

You will know of our next steps within the second quarter of next year.

Thank you.

And that was their final statement on the issue of experience.

1. Were they aware of the issues surrounding the concert, specifically the poor sound quality? (Acknowledging a problem.)

2. How many concerts had they organised prior to the Jay Chou concert? (To determine if inexperience was the reason for the hiccups.)

3. Were they going to get refunds? ($$$)

On to the next one.

Refunds

Some of you might have noticed this line in the previous email:

You will know of our next steps within the second quarter of next year.

Which might seem a bit of a reversal from their previous stance of "it will not take several months to finish our evaluation".

Their talks of final statements seemed to apply to all communications in general.

From Oct. 3, 2016, one month after the concert, to Feb. 22, 2017, Multimedia Entertainment sent out a grand total of 1 (one) email.

Over that same timeframe, Goh sent nine to them.

The latest email was sent on March 2, 2017, nearly six months on from the date of the Jay Chou concert.

Thank you for reminding and giving us your feedback regarding your experience at the concert.

We had many views from patrons and sound technicians regarding sound quality and the conditions affecting it. Moving ahead, we are looking into all feedback on the areas that we need to strengthen!

However, we are ultimately unable to offer a refund for the concert staged on 3 Sep at the National Stadium as the live concert was staged in its entirety.

We know that this is not the answer you are seeking but we are doing our best as an organiser after taking into an account all factors. We will be continuing our discussions with the artiste management and sound engineers to continually improve.

And with that:

1. Were they aware of the issues surrounding the concert, specifically the poor sound quality? (Acknowledging a problem.)

2. How many concerts had they organised prior to the Jay Chou concert? (To determine if inexperience was the reason for the hiccups.)

3. Were they going to get refunds? ($$$)

Apologies

One thing we observed throughout this entire time (six months, by the way, in case you've forgotten) has been the company's apparent refusal to apologise.

And you can bet Goh noticed it.

Oct. 3, 2016

Yes, we do not want just apologies anymore. But since your company noted that there were audience in some sections had issues with the sound quality,

till date, we have yet to even hear a single word of apology to the affected audience.

This probably shows how insincere your company is towards consumers of your product, isn't it so?

And in another email:

Oct. 5, 2016

Multimedia Entertainment till date has come across as very insincere in addressing the affected audience. Up till today, we have yet to hear a single word of apology for the bad concert experience we had, it appears that your company is unapologetic at all given that you had noted all our feedback and heard about our experience.

it appears that your company is unapologetic at all given that you had noted all our feedback and heard about our experience. All your company care to portray is your team and partners had "worked hard".

Maybe it's just bad email quality?

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Top image from Jay Chou's Facebook

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