Six month’s ago, Loquax user, BonosCamerawoman won tickets to see Girls Aloud in a competition run by Play.com in association with Live Nation. Part of the prize was a chance to meet the girls. BonosCamerawoman 11 year old daughter, a huge Girls Aloud fan, was obviously very excited by the prospect of meeting Cheryl, Nicola, Sarah, Nadine and Kimberley and has spent the last few months looking forward to the concert.
Cancelled Due To Swine Flu
The concert is due to take place this Sunday (17th May) at The Manchester Evening News Arena. Live Nation who organised the prize, however, have devastated the young girl’s dreams. They contacted the winner by phone “to say that the meet and greet has been cancelled due to the swine flu” (Loquax Forum). Live Nation have offered to try and arrange an “alternative prize” although there are no details on this.
Nothing But Plain Cruel
Swine Flu does seem to be a poor excuse from Live Nation, but even if that was the case they should have made sure an alternative “meet and greet” opportunity could be sorted out. To squash a young girl’s dream just like that, and so close to the concert date, comes across as nothing but plain cruel. Girls Aloud are not the only stars to allegedly cancel meet and greets due to swine flu. According to the Country Music Examiner country stars Miranda Lambert & Kenny Chesney have cancelled meet and greets in “San Antonio, Houston and Dallas over the H1N1-induced panic”!
BBC Watchdog
We wonder whether this kind of thing would interest BBC Watchdog. They recently reported on another youngster’s competition prize being taken off them by The Disney Channel. Thankfully that issue was resolved and Esther Martin got to see The Jonas Brother premiere. Let’s hope that the outcome of this pigs ear of a situation is resolved and that an 11 year old comper does get to meet Girls Aloud!
Good News
Following our earlier blog post (above) there’s some good news… it’s back on! BonosCamerawoman contacted The Mirror and they phoned the management company and Live Nation and then “suddenly I get a phone call from Live Nation to say that it was all back on”. It’s a shame that Live Nation caused the upset in the first place – and it just goes to show that this situation need not ever have arisen. Kudos to The Mirror for helping out in getting a positive result.
Bad PR Of The Day
We do try and help compers chase prizes when we can, but for the first time ever we used Twitter to try and get a story out into the big wide world. It proved an interesting exercise and there was a good response. We’d like to say, therefore, a very big thank you to everyone who followed and retweeted this story via Twitter. The story even made it on to a PR company’s Bad PR of the Day list. So finally, BonosCamerawoman and her 11 year old daughter can look forward to meeting Girls Aloud after all! Let’s hope there are no more hiccups and that they have a fantastic time at the show.