Clash Against Commercialism (ReS/12012/Studs NYC Show) Cancelled!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
"We've invented time travel!" (It's 6am March *26th*here in New York as I write this.)Important Announcement
NEW YORK, NY (March 28, 2008) –
For reasons beyond their control, rock fest Clash Against Commercialism set for April 6, 2008 at New York City’s Nokia Theatre Times Square has been cancelled.People never say, "For reasons beyond our control, the concert was a great success." It's always, "for reasons beyond our control, shit happened."
Well ~I~ say, if you can take credit for the successes, you can take credit for TEH fucking FAILZ, too.
Scheduling conflicts AND no visas? So even if they had visas, they still wouldn't have shown up. Classy. "Let's make backup plans just in case this Clash Against Cancellationism shit falls through."
A delay in securing visas for members of the featured Japanese bands, combined with scheduling conflicts, has promoters unable to reconfirm a new date as of today.
Organizers would like to thank all those who helped build the event, as well as all the fans who purchased tickets.I'm sure! "Thank you for all the free money."
Refunds will be available at point of purchase.Ticketmaster was charging an extra 25% of the ticket price ($56 for a $39 ticket!), so I didn't buy online. (I figured I'd just show up that night; Dir en grey didn't sell out the Nokia, there's no way ReS/Studs/12012 woulda, and I refuse to pay more money to Ticketmaster than to the one band [Rentrer en Soi] I want to see).
Anyone wanna do karaoke that night? There's a bunch of j-rock fans flying/bussing into the city who now have a GAPING HOLE in their itineraries. I say we do somethin' fun for 'em.
Meet at the Nokia at 6pm, then hit that brokedown Japanese street near St. Marks for some authentic Nippon-o-grub and karaokizin'. I'll make the reservations. Post in the comments if you're comin'. Otherwise I'll just go see Testament that night. ^_^ (Skolnick, baby!)
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25 comments:
Fuck. Now I can't make fun of people travelling from all over the country for this one event. This is pure LULZ.
I feel bad for all the people with non-refundable travel tickets. With all the shows going on this year, fans are probably saving up to see one or two artists.
Karaoke Duet?
http://www.karaokeduet.com/
Kyoto fu for desert? (kind of pricey)
http://www.kyotofu-nyc.com/
Hagi Sake Bar?
Whooo hoo, big drinking party!
I'm bummed that in your Luna Sea kareoke page they have no "Face to Face" or "Kono Sekai no Hatede". Oh wait, there's like 12 pages of Luna Sea, right?
But still! Luna Sea Kareoke!! That's .... EPIC. Just awesome.
Fuck. I actually paid for someones ticket and gave them 50 dollars to bribe them to bring to this. So, I'm out the ticket fees, the ticketmaster fees, plus 50 dollars, and I know I won't be going into the city that night just to hang out because the person hates NYC to begin with and Japanese music alike, so I'll be staying home and out... A calculated... 155.90.
Wait, SCRATCH that. I also brought the person giving me the ride out to dinner as part of the bribe, which cost me 20 dollars (for them.) So the grand total will be:
175.90 for a concert that is cancelled. Good times. D:
In retrospect I'm insane, but yeah, I paid someone 50 dollars, bought their concert ticket, AND treated them to a 20 dollar dinner just to drive me into NYC... a 15-20 minute drive from my house with light traffic considered. How the fuck could they overlook "scheduling and visas"? Isn't that 90% of setting up a concert of this nature? Jeez.
Wow, this is really upsetting. For me, I am going to be missing out on my favorite band (Rentrer en Soi) as well as seeing one of the most talented musicians on the scene today (aie). I also wanted to see other bands that I hav never seem before perform and for those bands that I have seem, it would have been fun to see them again. I like going to concerts, and had been anticipating this one for months. This turn of events is highly upsetting. I'm lucky that I'm not one of the hundreds who had to change work/school schedules and pay non-refundable airfare and hotel fees for this event, but I do feel for the people who have to go through this.
This whole thing is unacceptable and extremely unprofessional. I should just boycott the next event held by FWA because of this. I'm really considering writing an e-mail to the company about this, it's just so ridiculous...
Kay
Somehow, I knew something like this was going to happen. This is why i don't like FWA, aside from Harry Lo. He's a really nice guy, despite what people say.
From what I hear, the blame is being placed on Dynamite Tommy for this one.
Are there romaji lyrics in karaoke? There are very few j-rock songs that I actually know all the lyrics to.
When isn't Dynamite Tommy to blame these days?
I haven't seen romanji yet. Best bet is to print some lyrics out and stash em in your bag.
ezra, you're saying everyone else is to blame but the guy who probably fucked it up, given he's at least partly responsible and already spoiled the US Moi dix Mois shows? He may be a great guy personally, but it's irrelevant to everyone else when he's the one who doesn't know how to organize a show after the hype gets out and the tickets are sold.
12012, Antifeminism, and ReS have all played USA dates in the past year. Okay. The studs and boogieman have not.
So.
They cancelled over The Studs and Boogieman?
Ridiculous. I would still go see 3 out of 4 bands. Boogieman doesn't even COUNT, they were announced last minute.
I call shennanigans. Most these bands have visas.
ah, good point Klisk!
The "no visas" line has become really popular as an excuse, probably because it's partially true after 9/11, but also because there's no real way to check -- a promoter can just go "no visas! not out fault! blame the gov't!" and get away with being incompetent.
I'm wondering how many people would actually have attended the show. You figure the myspace page had 450 friends. Even if you quadruple that number, it's not enough to sell out the Nokia Theater. There's also surprisingly little talk about the cancellation as compared to say...Miyavi cancelling at that convention a few years ago.
"12012, Antifeminism, and ReS have all played USA dates in the past year."
The typical temporary nonimmigrant visa is only valid for 90 days (or less). After that, re-entry requires re-application.
However, the State Department website currently lists the total wait time for a visa issued by the Tokyo embassy as just 4 days.
Also, Japan is part of the Visa Waiver program, isn't it? Most Japanese citizens entering the US for tourism and/or business shouldn't even ~need~ visas anymore.
I believe if you're receiving salary/money from US entities you need the p1 entertainment visa. A little more complicated, but the basis is to prove you're an internationally recognized entertainer.
That's what I thought, but "P1" doesn't even come up in a search of state.gov anymore.
Unless I include the hyphen. D'oh! ^^;
the #1 issue with the japanese music industry is that they seem to think the way things work in japan is the way it works in america... which means, everything is pushed till the VERY LAST POSSIBLE MINUTE, and then everything is expected to get done at that last minute.
if i have to guess, someone was incompetent and simply waited too long to get around to do what they needed to do and when push came to shove, nothing was settled. most likely plane tickets were also not yet purchased, and hotels probably were not booked, which means costs skyrocketed and the budget went far too overboard. projections probably showed that cost would have outweighed income, and there would've most likely been severe losses on FW's end as opposed to gains.
to reiterate a few others, most likely the venue didnt sell out. there wasn't much promotions or marketing done for this, and the only band that really has any good billing is ReS.
i just feel really horrible for all those fans out there who already invested in plane and hotel that are non-refundable. hopefully they can get some kind of credits or mileage for the plane that can be one day used.
the artists also don't deserve to get jerked around like this either. it's total bullshit.
Never have I heard of musicians, of all people, being denied visas. What a paranoid place America has become, and I am embarrassed to even be here when I here stupidity like this.
No one said anything about being "denied" visas, did they? Coulda been they just didn't apply in time because of bad planning from the get-go. Don't be so quick to blame AMERIKKKA & BU$$$H!!!!!!11
Heh...lawl I'm so depressed......they probably cancelled it because of the poor ticket sales.
Oh well...hehe if the karaoke thing is really happening, I'll be a happy camper.
Harry Lo's a douchebag and pulls stunts like this all the time, so I'm sure some of this was his fault. FWA is a very unprofessional company. That really sucks for those fans though; that was a lot of money to lose :\
lol, we're doing a karaoke party on saturday since so many of us were still traveling up there. Good to see someone else wants to make the best of the situation.
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