Events

Jay Chow: come to my concert, it's for free!

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Jay Chow (周杰伦) is a Taiwanese mega popstar. Jay Chow will perform at Beijing's Workers Stadium on the 9th of July. However, no tickets are sold for this concert. Weird? Damn right.

In order to cover the high costs of his performance in the Chinese Capital (USD600,000) all the 33,000 tickets have already been sold to Jay Chow's sponsors, namely: China Mobile (25,000 tickets), the clothing brands Meters Bonwe and Deerhui (4,000 and 3,000 tickets respectively).

So, if you are a fan of this ubiquitous popstar, how are you supposed to get your hands on a ticket? A piece of cake: Just buy the products of his sponsors and you will get the ticket for free. But how much is for free? If you buy stuff for RMB1,480 (USD180) you'll get the best ticket available. If you spend RMB180 (USD21) you'll be watching your idol through a telescope. Why is this happening? Apparently, Jay's previous performances in China haven't been profitable at all for concert organizers. Jay wants a lot of dough to shake his booty on a superexpensive stage, but his hard core fans are all teenagers with very limited purchasing power.

According to Xinhuanet, some of his fans aren't particularly excited about this new ticket marketing idea. They say that a lot of people who are not real Jay's fans will get tickets only because they've bought a bandana and a pair of shoes. In fact, they may not even show up at the concert, or end up selling the tickets outside of the Workers Stadium.

Jay Chow's comment about this mess as reported by Xinhuanet has been: “I hope I can hold more concerts in the future to compensate my fans and at the concert on July 9, I will sing louder, so that those outside can hear”.

That's so admirable, Jay. Let's hope you'll sing loud enough to lose your precious voice for a couple of years.

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