Over the weekend I attended a concert by the singing maestro Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.
KARACHI: Over the weekend I attended a concert by the singing maestro Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. It was held at the DHA Golf Club and was an unmitigated disaster in terms of planning. Three kinds of tickets were sold by the organisers. Regular for Rs3,000, VIP for Rs4,500 and a so-called VVIP lounge could be booked for 10 people for Rs60,000.
Upon inquiry from the organisers I was told that the VVIP lounge would have the best view of the stage, that anyone who bought a seat there would be allowed to park their vehicle inside the club’s premises and that a waiter would serve us complimentary food and refreshments. None of this happened.
When I arrived with my family at the venue we were told that we could not park our cars inside the club and we were offered valet parking outside. To make matters worse, the actual venue was far away from the gate where people were allowed to enter from and they were prohibited from walking. For the thousands of people who showed up a total of five or six coasters were being used to transport them from the entrance to the actual concert location further inside.
As for the VVIP lounge having the best view, that was also misleading because we were given seats, which, while they were in front were on the left-most extreme which meant that the view was terrible. The organisers had, in fact, placed some tables right in front of the stage and these had the best view but none of these were the so-called VVIP lounges. I paid Rs60,000 for the seating and we still had a terrible view of the stage. As the concert proceeded many in the other sections of the audience came in the front and stood right in front of the said lounges. No barrier was in place separating them and the organisers made little effort to ask them to go back.
The whole atmosphere made families and even the singer (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan) very uncomfortable and nervous. The singer repeatedly asked the rowdy crowd in front of the stage to settle down and at one time refused to sing, but to his dismay things got worse when a fight broke out. When the concert was finally over the valet drivers were nowhere to be found and I had to locate my car myself.
A K
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2011.
