Upon hearing that RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 winner Sasha Velour was performing in Singapore, Jakarta-based Americans Samantha Jackson and her husband immediately bought tickets to the show and made arrangements to fly in for the event.
What they got for their troubles was just 20 minutes of Velour, who performed a couple of numbers at Shine Auditorium on Wednesday. The other 55 minutes of the show’s running time were taken up by Drag Race Thailand contestant Dearis Doll and local drag queen NORIStar.
As laudable as those opening acts might have been, it was clear that fans felt cheated. Tickets ranged from $88 to $138 (or up to $208 for VIP passes), and folks were expecting to see Sasha Velour slay on stage as the main act — not an afterthought. Marketing materials were, after all, focused solely on the famous New York drag queen.
Sashay away
Event organizers LA Comedy Live and its parent company, LAMC Productions, were immediately engulfed in the ire of upset patrons who felt swindled by it all. Refunds were demanded in vigorous fashion.
It was especially disappointing to the Jakarta-based Jackson, who told Coconuts Singapore she felt like the whole event was “completely disorganized.” According to her, the sound at the venue didn’t work properly, and there were neither merchandise sales nor a proper bar for drinks. The opening acts, she said, did not appear to be well-rehearsed or have prepared anything for the show, on top of being “really disrespectful.”
“They literally closed the show by saying that if we wanted more Sasha, we should not have been so cheap and we should have bought VIP meet and greet tickets. Or fly to Berlin, where she’s doing her next show,” Jackson told Coconuts Singapore.
Damn.
It would have been great if we actually got to see Sasha Velour. What we paid for: a 75 minute one woman show. What we got: four songs in 20 minutes and a bunch of half-assed, poorly organized, unrehearsed bullshit. For $150, that was straight-up robbery. CC: @CoconutsSG
— Samantha Jackson (@skjviajkt) July 26, 2018
Sasha responds
Speaking to the legion of upset fans, Sasha herself apologized for not being able to put up a satisfactory show — but pinned the blame on the organizers, claiming that they were not being transparent to attendees.
“While this was a mistake made on the producers of the event, I want to apologize to you personally. It breaks my heart that fans who saved their money came and left without what they were expecting.”
From what we can gather from Sasha statements, the gist of it is this:
- Her show was really meant to be about half an hour.
- LA Comedy Live, however, promoted the event as a full-length show.
- Sasha’s team requested organizers to fix the marketing and promotional materials to reflect the error. A cancellation was considered.
- LA Comedy Live apparently did not make the efforts to do so.
To be fair, the organizers did make the change in their copy — but this was done quietly. An attendee found out after the fact that the description on the Sistic ticketing page was amended.
One other attendee reported receiving a program lineup on the day of the show that did mention that it’d only be a half-hour Sasha Velour performance. Other ticket holders apparently did not get the email. And even if they did, given that they based their purchase decision on the previous copy, would it really matter?
“As you probably know at this point, the show was sold to us as a 75 minute one woman show – but that’s not what we got,” wrote Jackson to Sasha on Facebook.
“I never got an email or any sort of update in any form (via social media, etc…) that the format of the event was changing.”
LA Comedy Live strikes back
Nearly two days after the controversy, the event organizers finally explained their side of the story. The core of their statement? Don’t blame us — blame Sasha Velour’s team for being difficult to work with.
- The show description on Sistic was provided by a former booking agent, and there was a miscommunication about the duration of the show.
- In early July, Sasha suddenly changed her set timing to half an hour, and had a change in her management as well. Sasha’s team wanted to cancel the show entirely, but LA Comedy Live wanted it to continue.
- The organizers tried asking for another drag queen from Rupaul’s Drag Race, but Sasha’s team requested for an Asian drag queen. Thus, why Dearis Doll and NORIStar got the job as opening acts.
- Sasha’s team was not cooperative, the organizers claim. A detailed run down of her set was requested early on, but they only received it just hours before the show.
- They sent an email out to ticket-holders as requested. They were disappointed that Sasha’s statement did not state it.
- Technical requirements were not sent to the organizers, and requests arrived late on show day.
- There was no time for rehearsals as Sasha apparently arrived at the venue at 7:45pm — 15 minutes before the show. This was why there was significant delay in the outfit changes, they explained.
- The “lack of communication” apparently made it difficult for the show to even get approved by the authorities. A license for the show was only approved the day before.
Oh, and a refund of $20 will be given out to all ticket holders as a gesture of goodwill. Jackson, for her part, remained unconvinced by the LA Comedy Live clarification, angrily calling on others to boycott their future productions. Others felt the same too.
