TheatreArtLife: Leon Lai is one of the “Four Heavenly Kings” of Hong Kong; superstar HK actor and famous Cantopop singer from the 90’s. His songs are well known across Asia-Pacific and Mainland China and because his live concerts are limited, there’s huge anticipation and crowd turnout every time he performs.
4 comments:
I thought this article was surprisingly genuine and actually made some good points about regulations and dealing with them. I think it was great that the author pointed out the need for regulations and the fact that they are there for a reason and are not simply annoyances. The part I found most interesting about this article was the analysis of the artist's handling of the situation and the audience's response. I think because of the level of technology we have now, a video response is actually a great way to address these types of problems; it is personal yet efficient, allowing people to see the artist and hear what they have to say without them having to read it where there is lots of room for misinterpretation, especially in an emotionally charged crowd. I also agree that, even though the materials may be more expansive and harder to deal with, fire proof or fire resistant structures and materials are very important.
Dealing with emergencies and crisis situations in entertainment is always so difficult. You prepare for every eventuality and rehearse, but when it comes down to it everyone is taken a bit by surprise, at least from my personal experience with crises during performances or events. Something as big as a high-turnout event like this, especially, makes it just that much more incredible that the management and production teams were able to address it with such poise and with such speed and precision. The biggest things I was impressed by was the fact that the CEO himself was the one who addressed the issue, rather than leaving it to PR spokespeople or to social media blasts to do it. The fact that he went as far as to make a video clearly detailing what happened to fans helped to make sure that instead of uninformed outrage, there were people who understood what happened and why they had to cancel. This is a really important lesson on not only safety and researching safety codes of your locations beforehand, but also (and more so) about transparency and not hiding your flaws but instead explaining them, being open about what you did wrong, and making sure you inform your patrons and audience members that you plan on doing better in the future.
I think the fact that Leon Lai stepped forward and took control of the situation, while also placing all the blame on himself and not the laws that were in place preventing him from being able to perform. This truly speaks to the importance of crisis management and how it is crucial to respond quick, calmly, and fast. Also from the situation, I feel like it is evidently clear how much his fans support him and want him to be successful, because had he been a lesser known, less established artist, I do not think he would have held as much ground in coming out and apologizing for his mistakes. Regardless, I feel the best thing one can do when a situation like this, is be genuine and take responsibility- as it is so much better to face the facts that way, than to lie and try to hide things from audiences and fans who will ultimately find out anyways.
I wasn't sure what to expect when clicking on this article, but I am really happily surprised. It is so often we see examples of poor crisis management, but not often we see excellent examples of it. Firstly, I think that it is good to hear this situation deemed a crisis. It is so often that we heighten that word to take on a "larger than life" meaning. It is so difficult to cancel such a large scale event and then to have to do it two hours before performance is rough. I think it was a great demonstration of character to see how Leon Lai stepped into the spotlight and took the heat for the cancellation. I do wonder though, isn't there a tour manager who would have helped foresee the code violation? Ultimately, a simple mistake costing thousands of dollars in lost ticket sales. I think this crisis was handled gracefully and is a perfect example even for large corporations dealing with crises in their ether.
Post a Comment