Over the weekend I watched Sting live at the cultural center, it was my first time watching an event at JACC so I wanted to share my experience.
Firstly, I think its pretty cool that we’re finally getting proper concerts here in Kuwait. Although I’m not a huge Sting fan, I do like concerts and being able to watch an artist perform locally instead of me having to be on vacation in some other country is such a great feeling. I really hope this Sting concert turned out to be successful and profitable so that they’ll continue to bring more artists in.
But, I’m not so sure how good a venue JACC is for concerts like Sting. Although it’s a beautiful space, it just felt very formal and stiff for a concert, at least for one like Sting. A concert like Sting should have taken place outdoors, on the beach (like Dubai’s Sandance) or in a large park, like Al Shaheed. The only concert I’ve ever been to which had a similar formal mood to it was Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, but that was Bob Dylan.. at the Royal Albert Hall!
The second issue I had was with the fact that photos were not allowed to be taken during the event. From 50+ concerts I’ve been to in my life, not once were photos not allowed to be taken. Only one time, and one time only when watching The Lumineers perform, the lead singer requested the audience to politely put their phones away during one song so they could enjoy it. And that’s it. So it was super odd that JACC didn’t allow photos to be taken at this event. The bigger issue is actually how they tried to prevent people from taking photos. If you happened to take your phone out, maybe to take a photo, maybe to just check your WhatsApp messages or maybe you got bored and wanted to check Reddit, the ushers would automatically shine a red laser beam all over you and your phone. So while sitting there trying to watch the concert, I was distracted the whole time by red lasers being pointed all over the concert hall at anybody who happened to be looking at their phone. It was super annoying and it completely distracted the audience who were just trying to watch Sting. JACC, you can’t prevent people from taking photos, it’s just not physically possible to stop 2000 people from using their phones, so why ruin the experience for everyone with these distracting red lasers?
Finally the last and biggest issue I have with JACC is the disconnection between the restaurants and the theaters. Even though they’re located right next to each other, the gate that connects the two spaces is permanently kept closed. So after the concert when we wanted to go eat we were told the only way to do so would be to take our cars, drive out of the parking lot and then drive back into the restaurants parking lot and park there. If you didn’t want to take your car then your only other option was to take a 15 min walk through a maze in the parking lot to get to the other side. When I asked an usher why the gate was closed, I was told for security purposes. Very frustrating.
Overall though, I’m just glad we’re finally getting concerts here and I’m sure things will just keep getting better from this point forward. Can’t wait to see what concerts we’re getting next year.
