JEDDAH, 8 July 2003 — Despite a huge campaign and low-price tickets to encourage audiences during this year’s Jeddah Festival, the second concert on Sunday failed to meet the expectations of organizers.
They were disappointed as a mere 120 spectators turned out to attend the concert at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium, which seats 5,000.
Hamid Sarhan, organizer of this year’s musical events, told reporters the low turnout was unexpected. “We have done our best to make this year’s musical events a success through our huge campaign. But unfortunately only a small number of spectators attended Sunday’s concert,” he said.
But Sarhan said the empty seats had not discouraged the concert’s stars. “They saw how few people there were, but they insisted on continuing their program to entertain the fans who came to enjoy their music,” he said.
Before getting on stage, Saudi singer Ali Abdul Kareem said: “I know a lot of people thought I would cancel my appearance because of low attendance, but I came to entertain my fans here in Jeddah.”
He said the poor attendance was due to the scheduling of the concert at the beginning of the week.
Apart from Ali Abdul Kareem, Muhammad Ihsan and Faris Mahdi also went through with their performance.
One of the 120 spectators, Muhammad Al-Amoudi, told Arab News the day after that he could not believe the turnout but enjoyed the performance as he felt that singers paid more attention to requests by him and his friends than they would have done with a full house.
“Like us, I think most of the people who attended the concert were given free tickets, and that was an offer we couldn’t refuse,” he said. “The main problems were that it happened at the wrong time and there were no stars included in the program,” he added.
