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Singapore Guns N Roses show promoter admits numerous issues, but refuses refunds

By | Published on Tuesday 28 February 2017

Guns N Roses

Guns N Roses played their first ever show in Singapore on Saturday, although it did not go entirely to plan. It wasn’t Axl Rose’s fault this time, though. Promoter LAMC Productions has admitted to a string of errors leading to numerous problems on site, but stopped short of issuing refunds.

Ticketholders complained of long queues for food and drink, and transport on and off the Changi Exhibition Centre site. There were also issues with pre-paid credits on RFID writsbands, which many found themselves unable to use for cashless purchases on site after food and drink in one area ran out.

Admitting the problems, LAMC’s Ross Knudson told The Strait Times that “maybe it was too big for us”.

Getting into details, he said: “We needed a lot more staff, buses, [food and beverages], and to manage the site better. We needed a lot more help from the police, the Land Transport Authority and SMRT [public transport]. I want to apologise for that. It’s a very big endeavour and a very challenging venue to do a show there, but I don’t want to make excuses. We’re not going to be refunding tickets, but we apologise”.

On issues with the RFID wristbands he added that the company is “trying to embrace new technology” but should have “launched the wristband with the ticket at the very beginning instead of trying to force it at the last minute”.

Elsewhere, the company that provided hardware for scanning tickets distanced itself from the problems that occurred at the event’s entry points, saying that it had made enough scanners available but that there were not enough staff on hand to operate them. “SDP did not feel that six entry queues … would be adequate for an event of over 30,000 people”, said a spokesperson for the company. “However, it is the final decision of the organisers and their team to follow or ignore our recommendations”.

Despite all the issues, Knudson said his company remains committed to Changi Exhibition Centre as a music venue – it having only hosted one live music show before, a Metallica concert in 2013 also promoted by LAMC. “It’s a very challenging place, but it has tremendous potential to be the best concert venue in the whole region”, he said.

The good news is, Guns N Roses did play. Although there were also complaints about the quality of the sound.



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