A small group of Indian Australians who attended The Music of AR Rahman event presented by Arts Centre Melbourne on 16th February have formed a – Refund seekers for AR Rahman show.
One of its member, Praveen Puri told SBS Hindi that this group is for ‘AR Rahman fans who received an appalling experience’ at the event on Thursday.
Mr Puri said it was ‘a case of serious misleading advertisement where all the promotion had full length photos of A R Rahman to sell a show that was eventually performed by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.’
Mr Puri attended the event with his wife and daughter and spent $480 on tickets.
Praveen Puri attended the event with his wife and daughter and spent $480 on tickets. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
‘Rahman performed for a few minutes in the start, later came in, to perform a solo piece on piano and then towards the closing performed for a few minutes with a sitar player. He was barely there. The crowd, including me, was so disappointed. ‘We have been scammed’ is what I heard people saying around me,’ Mr Puri told SBS Hindi.
Through the Facebook group, Mr Puri hopes to give a voice to other attendees who felt the same.
‘All those A R Rahman fans, who felt cheated on that night and want to take an action against the organisers, please join this group and collaborate to have a single and strong voice against the organisers,’ the description for the group reads.
‘I can guarantee you there are many people in the community who feel like I do,’ Mr Puri said.
Molina Asthana, another Melbourne resident who attended the event said the event was fantastic.
Molina Asthana said the event was fantastic. Source: Supplied by Danyal Syed
‘Melbourne Symphony Orchestra played AR Rahman’s music. To me, he is not just a performer but a musician with so many hits including ones that have been so well received in the west. MSO performing Rahman’s music is a bigger tribute to him than he coming on stage and singing,’ she told SBS Hindi.
She added, ‘maybe people did not have an idea about the way event was designed. Better communication could have helped maybe but as a purist who likes Rahman’s music, I thoroughly enjoyed it.’
Arts Centre Melbourne in a statement said, ‘The program was devised as a celebration of Rahman’s music performed by the MSO and was not billed or marketed as a concert by Rahman himself. This was made clear in marketing collateral and ticketing information.’
'The rich concert repertoire consisted of blockbuster hits selected by the composer from his collection including Cry of Rose from Roja,Theme from Lagaan, Swades Suite, Bombay Theme from Bombay, Robot Suite, Slumdog Millionaire Suite, 127 Hours Suite, and the very popular Jai Ho! Compositions were especially arranged for this big orchestral event.'
It added, ‘For ticket-buyers, at no stage did Arts Centre Melbourne or Ticketmaster communicate that AR Rahman would be singing during the concert, or would appear for the entirety of the performance. Further information about the performance was communicated via FAQ’s which reinforced this message.’
Mr Puri however feels that the organisers need to apologise.
'Whether we are refunded or not, they need to publicly apologise to Rahman’s fans.'
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