Maddona Fans Are Upset with Her Late Arrivals
“We bought tickets for an 8:30 show on 11/7, NOT a 12:07 AM show start on 11/8”
By Kassandra Lopez, Global Strategic Communications graduate student at the University of Florida
As the recent adage goes “You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” Not much catches me by surprise anymore. Yet I was somehow taken aback by a screenshot of a headline today that stated plainly “Miami man sues Madonna over concert time”. As a result, I found myself perusing several articles, which explained the situation. One particular article, written by Katie Notopoulos of Buzzfeed substantiates the claims with feedback by other fans affected by the changes.
I first did my due diligence in figuring out of the actual situation was real. A few google searches and a trip to the Ticketmaster official page for the tour verified that the situation was in fact very real. Fans were sold tickets, months in advance for an 8:30 pm show. Only to have these changed to a 10:30 pm show, without much notice. A few clicks of the Miami-Dade County Civil Court Database also showed that the suit was in fact real!
Ticketmaster has spoken out to Buzzfeed reporter Katie Notoplous. Ticketmaster claims they’ve adjusted concert start times in response to Madonna’s concerts starting ‘notoriously late’. I also verified by clicking the link to Madonna’s response, a caste meme of her saying ‘A queen is never late’ during a show. This was accompanied by the hashtags #madamextheatee #thecolosseum. By comparing the timeline of events, making sure this was indeed Madonna’s twitter account and seeing the replies from fans.
The provenance of these pieces of information came directly from the source, Ticketmaster spoke on their behalf when directly questioned on the situation. Madonna chose of her own volition to laugh the ongoings off with her casual tweet. All of these things happened on the same day, thus they are following in chronological timeline of events. It appears Madonna’s motivation to put out the sassy comment was to further fuel the fires and assert herself to her fans.
After checking my sources, I was sure that I had fully understood the ongoing situation and could then appropriately analyze people’s responses. The responses range from mildly infuriated to literally pursuing legal action. In attempting to fact check these tweets, I hit many roadblocks. Oddly enough it becomes easy to collaborate many of the tweets based on other tweets shared around the same time.
The first one tweet has Katy Comstock sharing her frustrations at the change. The following comments by Trevor are also backed by the ongoing discussions.
I took the liberty of searching through the Twitter account all of the people tweeting about the concert (I’m not a creep, this is for science!). Some had much older mentioning of being excited about this event from before, such as Katy’s. This adds credibility to the statements and points of view. Unfortunately, none of the accounts mentioned are verified. Additionally, accounts like Trevor’s lack of pictures or other identifying information, which would make his contribution more credible.
My assertions that many tweets can vouch for each other plays out in the following two instances. Pauline B shares that her show was also moved to 10:30 pm, and did not begin until midnight. Her commentary aligns with another happening that was tweeted shortly after by Rick Pierce who echoes a similar experience at his show, which began after midnight as well!
Lastly, this photo post by jimmy sums up everyone’s current feelings about the situation, he also tweeted on on November 8th the concert-goers were not pleased with their late show. Issues arise for me when I try to verify additional commentary that may not be factual. For example, in this last tweet, Jimmy comments spectators where“Furious and several left the venue, others were sleeping” I can only take his word for this, as it is not mentioned in other tweets and no evidence is provided.
I can see cause for people involved to be exaggerating the situation, as it would ultimately benefit them. I’m sure many spectators will use these claims to petition for their money back. The story has also been verified by BuzzFeed, who has reached out to the man suing Maddona, Nate Hollander and Ticketmaster directly. The comments in tweet form by fans have little accountability, yet could easily sway readers. This is why they were added to the original story, regardless of validity. As a general rule, I don’t think anyone should be basing a hard opinion on tweets. It is our responsibility as consumers of media to take everything with a grain of salt, and do our own research prior to forming opinions.
