Singapore Indoor Stadium Gripe

[Travailes]

Singapore is able to attract top acts but why is the F & B offering inside so rubbish ? I don't necessarily object to $12 a can of Carlsberg (well I do really) but what a complete disaster it is to get one. Two bars , I mean tables, managed by a few 'students' with no idea of how to manage a busy bar ! Plus you can only buy two alcoholic drinks which means a group of six has to have three of the party present to buy a round. They don't even have enough change to run the bar efficiently. Crazy !

[JR8]

Drives me nuts when you have F&B and have to queue twice. Once to pay for tokens, then start all over again 1 metre away, to exchange tokens for F&B. That can easily take half an hour.

It was always like this at Forth Canning, and I expect it still is... [sigh]

p.s. I don't think SGns get the culture of buying rounds in. Plus remember it wasn't that long ago (90s) that you had to remain seated throughout a concert or the gahmen spooks (censorship board?) would stop the concert. I expect the gahmen still don't feel totally at ease with a bunch of p'd up hyped up youths spilling out of a venue...

[x9200]

Surely (@SIS) it is not a top bar service but is it really that inconvenient? I even dare to say the students are surprisingly effective, but yes, there were some problems with the change when I was there last Tuesday. I don't recall such problems a few months earlier.
I found much more inconvenient the practical impossibility of getting a table in majority of the restaurants one hour before the concert. Still it is pretty understandable.

[poodlek]

Two-drink limit is par for the course in sports stadiums where I come from, since they don't want people spilling and it's tough to gage when they've over served someone when they're in a large crowd. To combat the inconvenience, however, they have runners that bring beer to your seats, and it is usually a *very* well organized operation, as in any self-respecting arena F&B is where 90% of the income comes from.

[JR8]

Two-drink limit is par for the course in sports stadiums where I come from, since they don't want people spilling and it's tough to gage when they've over served someone when they're in a large crowd. To combat the inconvenience, however, they have runners that bring beer to your seats, and it is usually a *very* well organized operation, as in any self-respecting arena F&B is where 90% of the income comes from.

Down at say Twickenham in London they give you cardboard trays that take 6 * 1 pint glasses of beer. There, nothing spilled

If you're at a concert/event you usually pick you moments to go and get a round in. If it is going to take 30 minutes that pretty much gives you the chance for one beforehand (unless you want to spend the actual concert in the beer queue). So, agree with you Poodle, the loss of potential F&B profit is staggering.... inexplicable...

[x9200]

It took me less than 10 min each time for the whole round trip toilet inclusive. There was always a queue at the drink station but the progress was fast so all together I can hardly see it as an inconvenience. But then it also must depend on the band playing and the audience. With the recent Roxette there was only one station (inside the theatre), earlier for Cranberries there were two. I can imagine there can be situations where 10 would not be enough.

[JR8]

And this is what they misjudge... amateurs.

[BigSis]

Fort Canning's concert bars are a joke too, but at least you can have your drinks while you're watching the show there.

[JR8]

Fort Canning's concert bars are a joke too, but at least you can have your drinks while you're watching the show there.

Yeah, from a glass half-full perspective. At least you get to watch the show you paid $200 to see whilst standing in the beer queue all night.

[BigSis]

Fort Canning's concert bars are a joke too, but at least you can have your drinks while you're watching the show there.

Yeah, from a glass half-full perspective. At least you get to watch the show you paid $200 to see whilst standing in the beer queue all night.

Ha, yes and then you get to fork out $15 for a very weak vodka and tonic.

The drinks selection was cr@p at Kasabian - Bacardi Breezer (yuck), weak and expensive spirits or VB...........it was like they were trying to sell off the leftover Christmas booze

[Travailes]

Look this is supposed to be a premier music venue. To not have dedicated bars is an embarrassment. To serve drinks from a collection of tables is hardly 'world class' which is what Singapore aspires to be. Carlsberg posters everywhere indicate they are premier sponsors. Not much good when probably the best beer in world runs out after an hour !

[ecureilx]

...p.s. I don't think SGns get the culture of buying rounds in. Plus remember it wasn't that long ago (90s) that you had to remain seated throughout a concert or the gahmen spooks (censorship board?) would stop the concert. I expect the gahmen still don't feel totally at ease with a bunch of p'd up hyped up youths spilling out of a venue...

Late 90's when I crashed in Singapore, you were not allowed to get up, move around or no drinks, during concerts, in the SIS.

Well, it wasn't the censor boards who did the honours, but the cops .. who tap you on your shoulder and remind you 'not to damage public property' .. and 'if you want to dance, do go to the last row and do so .. '

Oh well, when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were here, they did light up on stage, no kidding, and by then, the cops had been told to tone down I guess ..

After all, who could imagine Mick Jagger minus a smoke ..

[Mi Amigo]

Things have definitely loosened up in recent years. I remember going to see the Skatalites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skatalites) at the Esplanade back in 2004. The house lights were kept on (low), no-one was allowed to stand up and then the 'cops' moved into the audience when some foolish reveller decided to light a cigarette (I'm pretty sure it was just a ciggie). Not exactly the ideal atmosphere for a gig like that and you should have seen the faces of the band when they had to tell the audience "You're not allowed to stand up, OK?"

Fast forward to (for example) Santana at the indoor stadium last year and the mood was much better. But I concur about the bar situation though - TBH I don't even bother to get a drink inside the venue now; I'd rather grab a beer at Brewerkz before or after the show.

[JR8]

I saw Pearl Jam at the SIS in 94/95 and we all had to sit on red plastic 'school' chairs. The moment the band came on - bam - everyone was up on their feet and some people were passing chairs over the crowd to the periphery. The cops stopped the show certainly twice, and we were told to return the chairs and sit down or the plug would be pulled on the night, all relayed to us in a 'I can barely bring myself to say this' voice via lead-man Eddie Vedder.

It got to a point there was no way the chairs were going to all be passed back and laid out, and the show went ahead with us on our feet. That night PJ played a cover of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall three times, complete with the original animated video on the stage backdrop.

The 'subtle message' was not lost on the audience

p.s. Even these days I understand that band members are obliged to have a close police monitoring escort for xHrs (3?) before going on stage. Does anyone know more about that? I'd heard this before but I think it was an interview with The Prodigy more recently that reminded me of it.

[Mi Amigo]

Great story; I expect the boys in the band were telling everyone about it for a while afterwards too ("You'll never guess what happened when we played Singapore..."). Like I said, things have lightened up somewhat since then. I'd not heard about the police escort thing, but maybe that's just for reasons of (their) security, rather than anything more sinister?