The concert tagged ‘Wizkid Live In Abuja’ held at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja on Friday 17, 2021 was billed to start at 4 pm. It, however, began late in the night with invited upcoming artists coming to perform and the headliner of the show Wizkid not showing up until 3 am leaving fans frustrated.
As much as fans love to see their favorite artists perform during the season of music concerts and live performances, they also dislike it when they arrive late for events that they paid for. Fans recently resorted to Twitter to express their displeasure with artists who keep people waiting for events for far too long.
Fans in Abuja who were inconvenienced when Wizkid arrived at 3 a.m. resorted to social media to express their dissatisfaction. @ChuChuIgbokwe, a Twitter handler, urged artists to treat Nigerian music fans with the same respect as those who attend their gigs worldwide.
“They don’t behave like this when they are touring Europe and the US. Not necessarily because they don’t want to but they cant. Refunds and lawsuits will keep musicians and promoters honest. They can bankrupt you pretty quickly. Also, venues and city permits have fixed times. You cant exceed them,” he said.
He also called for better accountability of everyone involved in planning from the promoters to the artist. “At the end of the day, it comes down to institutions and culture. The city, the venue the promoter/organizers, the performing artist. nobody holds the other accountable. The irresponsibility flows downhill combined with no consumer protections. All it takes is for one promoter to advertise a concert at 8 pm and start immediately. Customers have paid already so if they miss the performances it’s on them (legally),” he added.
He cited Burna Boy’s performance at the Coachella music festival in 2019 when his microphone was cut off the Nigerian Grammy winner tried to perform beyond his allotted time.
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One of this year’s concerts attended by BusinessDay representatives had 6 pm shown as the start of the show, but as at 7 pm fans were not still allowed to enter the hall and the show officially kicked off by 9 pm with the headliner of the events coming to perform by 11: 35 pm.
Another social media user @scarymercury aired his complaints online after attending Wizkid’s concerts in Abuja. the user shared how the singer did not show up until 3 am and apologized briefly blaming the airport for showing up late.
The upcoming artists who came to perform to get the excitement till the headliner of the event showed up were met by angry fans who were worried that they had wasted their money and as a result received a cold reception from the audience.
“We need to start treating artists’ performance like products,” said the Twitter user, “we should not support people that do not respect our time and hard-earned money. We need to take our power back. Imagine if he came by 3 am and no one was there, it would shock him,” he said.
Fans are calling on Nigerian musicians to be more considerate of concert-goers’ time, since they come to see their favorite artist perform live, meet new people who share their musical tastes, and return home feeling that their money was well spent.
Nigerian singers have a habit of arriving late for their concerts, leaving paying fans waiting and in some cases lingering for hours before they decide to perform. In 2018 Afro-fusion singer, Burna Boy showed up eight hours late to his headline concert while Simisola Bolatito Kosoko, better known by her stage name Simi who headlined her self named concert on December 9, 2018, started her show 5 hours behind schedule.
