The popular K-pop group, Blackpink, is holding its concert in Singapore this weekend. Over 50,000 fans attended their concert held at the National Stadium yesterday.
It sounds like a resounding success for Day 1.
However, what was not a success was the concert that the four idols held in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, earlier in March this year.
In fact, one irate Blink (the name of Blackpink’s fans) even commenced a lawsuit against the event organiser due to the poor handling of the concert.
Here’s what happened.
Man Says That He Was Sold a Seat Which Did Not Exist
What was supposed to be a great concert experience to see his idol performing live turned out to be a nightmare for Mr Nas Rahman.
Mr Rahman is a lawyer in Malaysia.
In a post made on 5 March this year on Twitter, the microblogging social media site, Mr Rahman writes in Malay that he was sold a seat which did not exist in the venue.
Blackpink had held made a stop in KL for their Blackpink World Tour Born Pink concert on 4 March 2023. The venue for the KL concert was Bukit Jalil Stadium.
According to Mr Rahman, he had purchased a seat in “section 207, row G” with the seat number being “37”. However, when he went to the venue, he realised that the last seat in the row was seat number 36.
There was no seat 37 in sight.
The row he had bought was also the last row in the section, so there were no further seats which could have been his.
As a result, Mr Rahman had to spend the entire concert standing at the entrance or sitting on the aisle stairs to watch his favourites perform.
Blackpink’s concert in Singapore yesterday was 105 minutes long, so the concert in KL would probably have been around the same duration. That seems like an awfully long period of time to stand in an uncomfortable spot.
Mr Rahman did not elaborate on why he did not approach the staff at the venue to clarify his missing seat. He also did not mention how much he paid for the ticket.
The good thing is that Mr Rahman’s wife managed to escape the cruel fate dealt to him. In a tweet replying to a netizen, Mr Rahman shared that he had attended the concert with his wife though she managed to find a seat. It was not mentioned whether the couple had bought seats together or separately.
Man Then Sends A Letter of Demand to Live Nation Malaysia and Go Live
The next day, Mr Rahman updated his followers in a follow-up tweet that he had sent a Letter of Demand to “Go Live” and “Live Nation” to seek a refund for the price of the ticket and some compensation.
He attached an image of a letter which was addressed to “Mindful Technologies Sdn Bhd” and “Live Nation Malaysia Sdn Bhd”.
Based on his Twitter account bio, Mr Rahman appears to be a lawyer who works with a firm named “Nas Rahman & Co”—probably his own law firm. It seems like the organisers chose the wrong person to mess with, hence the lawsuit.
This Blink’s story also started to gain more traction, with the evening news in Indonesia reporting about Mr Rahman’s plight. Mr Rahman posted a clip of the news from CNBC Indonesia, which discussed his case on Twitter.
A couple of days later, on 14 March 2023, Mr Rahman updated his followers with some promising news. Live Nation and Go Live had reached out to him and were discussing a solution. He asked the organisers to answer his Notice of Claim, and they replied that they would.
Man Fails to Settle the Dispute With Live Nation Malaysia and Go Live and Sues Them
Unfortunately, the parties involved did not manage to reach an amicable settlement on the issue. Mr Rahman shared with his followers via a tweet that as no agreement was reached, he filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Go Live with the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court.
An image of the lawsuit was attached to this tweet.
The Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court is authorised to hear civil claims of between RM 100,000 (which is approximately S$30,000) and RM 1,000,000 (which is approximately S$300,000), so Mr Rahman’s claim against the two organisers will fall somewhere between this range.
The actual quantum claimed by Mr Rahman was not revealed in his tweets. However, given that a concert ticket is not likely to have been purchased at a cost in the thousands, Mr Rahman’s claim would be for hundreds or even thousands of times the cost he spent buying the concert ticket.
Perhaps the event organisers should have acceded to Mr Rahman’s original request for a ticket refund or some other compensation to avoid an expensive lawsuit.
Mr Rahman also made a TikTok video about the matter to clarify things further. In particular, Mr Rahman clarified his intentions behind suing the concert organisers.
He believed he had to take action “not because of money” but because he did not want others after him to suffer the same fate as he did.
A noble cause indeed.
He also suggested that he was less concerned about the outcome of the case and wanted to make the concert organisers take responsibility for the customers who were buying tickets to support their artists.
It appears that the court case is still ongoing at the moment.
On 10 May 2023, Mr Rahman gave another update to his followers about the matter but did not go into the details about how the case was progressing.
He shared that he was unable to comment on the case as it was going through the court process, though he may make mention of the case progress, such as the dates of the hearing.
But followers of this case need not worry about being left out in the cold. While Mr Rahman may have his hands tied in terms of providing real-time updates about how the case is progressing, he promised to update his followers regardless of whether the outcome is eventually a favourable or unfavourable one for him.
It seems that all Blinks can do now is to wait and see how this pans out.
What do you think about this? Could this situation be no more than a publicity stunt for Mr Rahman’s law firm, or was he really trying to do some good to protect fans in the future?
Blackpink’s Born Pink World Tour 2023 is scheduled to continue to at least August of this year, so let’s hope that no other fans face such issues such as missing seats.