Elegance @ Moso Moso Thai Restaurant, Oxford Road, Manchester. Saturday 29th September 2007
Review - T 2 Bad
This is a long one, but bear with me...
After the September event, Elegance seemed to be well and truly under way, but unfortunately the promoters seemed to have shot themselves in the foot for the October offering. I had just parked the car and passed two women who were leaving early, I asked them what's it like in Moso Moso and one of them replied “Don’t know” she continued, “They’re charging £15 on the door and I went to last months gig and it’s not worth £15 so I’m going home”!
As the party I was with got to the door there were 12 disgruntled punters stood there claiming they were under the impression that the admission was £10 and that they weren’t aware it had been hiked to £15! As I was going through into the venue I could see the lot of them leaving. When I got inside and looked around it was that quiet you could see the tumbleweed rolling across the dance floor. I couldn’t believe the promoter had let so many people walk away especially as the restaurant was so sparsely populated.
I thought the main man DJ Bullitz couldn’t have been aware of that his staff were turning away good business on the door so I alerted him to what was happening, but to my surprise it turned that it was he who had implemented the rigid price policy and he made it quite clear to me that he wasn’t for turning! A little later I went outside and bumped into a friend of mine who was in a party of 8 who were also under the impression that the admission price was £10 and again they were being rebuffed. She was being told by the door staff that the promoter had warned “Woe betides the person who lets anyone pass without parting with £15”, so they were powerless to act.
To be honest the staff were being as good as they could be about it, but their hands were tied. The friend who was still stood at the door asked me to have a word with the promoter on her behalf which I did but again Bullitz insisted that a text message had been sent out outlining that it was £15 on the door and he wasn’t budging. To my surprise Bullitz then stopped the music, walked in to the middle of the dance floor and proceeded to tell the 50-60 people who were there that they were offered the chance to purchase £5 early bird tickets and they could have got standard tickets for £10 up to 30 minutes before the doors opened, so in future everyone should buy their tickets early!
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing or hearing; I was stood in an empty venue where the 20 or so people that I saw turned away would have increased the attendance by over a third, and here was the promoter publicly berating people and rigidly sticking to his guns regarding the admission price!!! Anyway as the song goes “Everyone does there things a little way different”!!
From an entertainment point of view the music was very up & down. Added to the fact that the atmosphere whilst being friendly enough, was a bit flat it all added up to not a lot for £15. After a promising September, Elegance failed to live up to expectations in October but there is a silver lining. The promoter DJ Bullitz must have felt like the last man standing because he was the only person who was seeing things his way but eventually the penny must have dropped. To appease the few who were there, he handed out FREE tickets for the November event which was at least some kind of recompense.
Soul Control Verdict:
Elegance was a PR disaster for the promoters because of the excessive door price. At least this was recognised by the promoter and free tickets to the November event were handed out to smooth things over, but as to whether anyone will go back there to use them is another matter.
Soul Control Rating:
