The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media
platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and
international interest.
Revellers have been used to all the cool stuff happening in Nairobi so when someone sets out for Mombasa as the big venue there is always a fuss. There was little belief in the hype at the beginning until the artiste posted a video on Instagram quashing any doubts.
The bad.
There seemed to be so many communication loopholes. First of all, of course the fact that the show wasn’t confirmed until later on, made the sales of the tickets slow at the start. On the other side, people thought tickets were going for Sh10,000, Sh20,000 and Sh50,000 for gallery, VIP and VVIP respectively. This was not the case; regular tickets were going for Sh5,000, Sh10,000 for VIP and 20,000 for VVIP.
There were different ticket vendors trying to hawk the tickets, with different offers. This was a problem at the entrance as some officials didn’t know about other ticket vendors which left quite a number of people stranded. The official vendors from the start were Ticket Sasa and Jambo Pay.
One other deal breaker was the terms and conditions given at the time for buying the ticket. It specifically said that, if the artiste doesn’t show up, there would be no refund. This made many people question if they had better things to do with their money.
Apparently, there was a press conference the morning of the show but it was not communicated to the press, no one really knew about it until later. Some of the performing acts might have not taken this thing seriously as they did not even come for sound check. If there was going to be any press conference it would’ve been attended by the official organizers only, maybe.
Minutes after landing, a woman alleged that Chris Brown broke her iPhone for attempting to take a selfie with him, which worked up many fans on social media who tried to get him deported trending with the #deportChrisBrown trending for the better part of the day. The story soon died down with another fan revealing a video which shows Chris not responding to the lady and heading to the car waiting for him.
The show was set out to start at 2pm but there was no music at the venue even late into the afternoon. Unfortunately for the early birds, neither the show nor the hype started until 8pm.
When you pay twice or three times as much as other revellers there should be advantages, such as getting a better view to the artiste. Unfortunately, most of those in the important sections had to move to gallery to catch a better glimpse of the artiste and not just on the screen, because otherwise it would have been better to just stay home and watch YouTube videos.
Also, there were a handful of people at the VVIP section by 10:30 pm, which was OK because it is not supposed to be crowded anyway. Then at around 11pm, about 7 big cars drove into the event with hundreds of people being whisked to the VVIP section, crowding it, making it just another gallery with lounge seats and a bad view. Most people at the VIP section were forced to go to the gallery because it was too crowded.
If you are headlining for an A-list act, it is only fair that you make it your work to give your best on stage. Maybe the crowd was too anxious to see Breezy that they didn’t care about other artistes, but there little excitement with other local headlining artistes. At one point, when Navio was performing, the crowd was unmoved that he had to ask the MC’s to hype the crowd again. Sad.
The good.
Security was on point once you got into the event there was guards every two metres and bouncers everywhere. I spotted three people being whisked out of the event mercilessly and the security official said there were 15 of them locked up by the time the event was coming to an end. Who doesn’t like to have fun in a safe environment?
The stage was metres away from the crowd which made no room for crazy fans jumping on stage. There was hardly people crossing over or jumping the rails to restricted areas because the barriers were so high up.
The star of the show, Chris Brown, came in a little later than expected but his entrance had everyone with their throats going hoarse from screaming with excitement. He got on stage at 12:55am with an entrance to be etched on all of the present revellers’ minds for a long time.
Black hat, reflector sunglasses, pink bomber jacket, white T-shirt, blue jeans and black canvas shoes, the singer walked on stage and stood by screen as his graphics rolled. They went blank, more screams as he stood there illuminated with a single light on him.
As everyone soaked in the moment, phones raised to capture this momentous occasion with cameras flashing. More graphic effects, his music starts, he moves to the front of the stage, breaks into one of his signature dances and then he starts singing. Fine by Me is off of his seventh studio album, named after his three-year-old daughter, Royalty.
Joined by his two dancers on stage, they gave an unbelievable energetic performance that left the crowd nothing short of thrilled and entertained, he even did the flip! He performed all the time he was on stage leaving no room for a flat line; except for moments he would go back stage to change shirts which would last less than 15 seconds.
He performed hit after hit that the fans were very much familiar with and they sang along. His older tracks from way back when such as With You, Beautiful people had fans all engulfed in nostalgia. He also teased with his parts in well-known collaborations such as All eyes on you featuring Nicki and Meek.
Finishing at 2:17 am with a two-minute well-choreographed dance and a vote of thanks to his dancers, team and fans, the award-winning artiste seemed happy with the turn out and enjoyed his time on stage.
He lived up to his hype of being the main act of the event and all those frustrations of the event seemed to vanish. It was refreshing and sort of life-changing to say the least. Definitely worth the hustle for those that had to catch the last plane to the coast to attend the show.
Later, after Chris Brown was done and all the credits had been given by the MC’s Ali Kiba came back to the stage and gave a much better performance than what he had deceived his fans with at the beginning of the show.
Finishing off the show was rounds of fireworks and a promise to bring Nicki Minaj for the next Mombasa Rocks concert.
