Cancelled Concerts

 

A friend recently drove over 5 hours from Edmonton to take in a concert of a long-time favorite musician. We were shocked to find upon arrival at the venue that the concert was “postponed due to illness” the day before the show.  She had tears in her eyes, a refund process still wasn’t figured out and it was almost 6pm on a Friday. If you live in, or have ever been to Saskatoon you know that you can NOT get into a Saskatoon restaurant at 6pm on almost any Friday or Saturday night. It was also payday for many people, which would mean that places would be extra busy. All I’ll say about the venue is that a meal was supposed to accompany the show, so we were left with no concert and no meal at 6pm on a Friday night. In this age of computer wizardry, don’t you think it would be possible for a concert venue to inform ticket purchasers that a show has been cancelled? They’ve got all your contact info including your phone number and your email address, so why can’t they send out a recorded phone message and/or an email to those whose contact information they have? Is that too much to ask? If my pharmacy can call me with a recorded message to let me know it’s time to renew a prescription, why couldn’t a concert venue line up the same thing? The technology is certainly there.

A simple email or phone call the day before the concert (which was when they knew it was cancelled) would have made a big difference in customer service AND perhaps saved a lot of money in gas for my friend to drive over 5 hours to a concert that wasn’t going to happen.

We made the best of it and were very lucky there was another concert that night (even from the same era!). So, instead of one act & a meal for $25 we had a meal for $14.99 and then paid $44.95 each to see a triple-bill of Headpins, Honeymoon Suite and Kenny Shields/Streetheart. It was an excellent show and concert but how often is there an alternate show in a city our size the same night?!

If you’re a computer programming expert, develop a system to sell to concert venues so they can notify ticket holders of a cancellation/postponement.  There wasn’t even notice in the daily newspaper of the cancellation. There’s got to be a better way.

At least I got to see Kenny Shields & sing along with every single tune at the top of my lungs, just like I did when I was in high school.