I didn’t finish rounding up the weekend following my previous post about Perth, because there was a pretty unfortunate incident that occurred last Sunday that was going to make my blog post very long if I continued it there.

Nick and I saw Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza show in Sydney late last year (wow… was it really that long ago?), and Nick actually saw it again in January with his family whilst I was in Perth. Nick really enjoyed the show, much more than I did, so when we saw signage of the show having its last Australian shows in Perth – which happened to be while we were there – he was really keen to go again. At first my reaction was just an eye-roll – like, you want to see it again? – but then I agreed and we decided to go to the last show on the Sunday night.

I was actually really looking forward to it, and we decided we could get dinner afterwards in Northbridge, at Aisuru Sushi, which I had been to before. Since the location of the show was hard to get to by public transport, we jumped into an Uber. The Uber driver was really friendly. He misheard “Cirque du Soleil” as “Circus LA” and neither Nick or I had the heart to correct him, unfortunately, which made me feel a little bit awkward. At first I thought I was mishearing him due to his accent, but nope… he was actually saying “Circus LA”…

We noticed there was a lot of traffic around the venue. We were still very much on time for the 5:30pm show, and the tent was nearby, so we could just walk instead of waiting for our driver to drive us at a more appropriate drop-off point. The traffic was slow enough (well, it had basically stopped) that we told him we would be able to safely get out of the car. Nick was very quick to get out, but I still had the door to the car open when I heard one of the ground staff say, “The show’s been cancelled, guys”.

What?

My immediate thought was, ah… that is why there are all these cars around. But then I thought, what the hell? That’s just shit! The disappointment sunk in.

“If you would like a refund please drive up there and to the left.”

As I had the door to the car still open, I said to the driver, “Err, the show has been cancelled… apparently we can go over there for a refund.”

After a bit of confusion, the driver invited us back in and he said he would drive us around to get a refund. At this point he actually had to pick up another passenger. He had to call her and tell her that he couldn’t pick her up anymore, but unfortunately he had already ended our trip and accepted her request for a ride. She seemed slightly ticked off – she had also just found out the show had been cancelled. While we were stuck in the long line of cars, all with people waiting to get a refund, we saw the girl and her friend standing at the corner of the next set of lights. The Uber driver told the girl that he would drive us around and then pick her up, if she would wait. We had a bit of a laugh and he said, “Now I have to deal with an angry customer.” We wondered if she would actually wait.

The traffic was mostly customers who had come to see the show. We managed to get through it, and as we came around the bend, I was expecting some kind of box office where people were lining up to get a refund. The driver wound down the windows and we were approached by another member of the ground staff who apologised and passed us a flyer that explained that the show had been cancelled, and if we purchased tickets through the website, they would be automatically refunded (otherwise to contact the ticket retailer). I noticed that other people were walking away, flyers in hand, and the cars just exited the venue. It was really disorganised and to be notified this way was a bit appalling.

The lady who gave us the flyer had said, pointing at some of the text on it, “Unfortunately since this was the last show, you are unable to see the show at a later date.”

Well, no shit.

Our Uber driver said, closing the windows, “Where is my apology! I’m the one stuck in this traffic. But also, they wasted your time, too, and your time travelling…” We agreed, and I felt pretty bad for him that he had gotten stuck in that traffic. We thanked him as we approached a set of lights and left him to pick up the girl and her friend.

The flyer hadn’t explained the reasons why the show was cancelled.

At this point we suspected that it might be hard to get a ride, but it wasn’t too hard. We just didn’t want to be stuck in the area for a long period of time. As we waited around for another Uber driver to pick us up, customers were exiting the tent and shouting to the drivers in the cars, “Go home, the show has been cancelled! Go home!”

We spotted our Uber driver with two passengers still in his car. Winding down the window, he said, “I’ve just got to drop these girls off over there and I’ll pick you up.”

After a moment we explained to them that the show had been cancelled. I hated to be the one to tell them!

The girls asked where we were headed, so we said Northbridge, and they said to jump in with them and we could all go there. That was nice of them – I know not many people are fans of ridesharing. The Uber driver had also already stopped the girls’ trip and started ours. We went through the same thing of passing ground staff and were handed the flyers. The girls were really bummed out because they were sure their coworkers would have a laugh at them, and they had also been looking forward to the show.

We felt a strange disappointment as we went to dinner. Nick said that had we not bought tickets, he would not have been so upset, but because we did, and paid for them, and actually went to the venue… we actually had something to look forward to. But I agree, it sucked. We had a look on social media and other families were also very upset, especially their children who had gone home crying. We found out the earlier 1:30pm show had been cancelled as well. Other people had even come much earlier and bought popcorn and drinks (which they had been refunded).

I think the most disappointing thing was that we were not given enough notice and that’s why so many people were stuck in the carpark, confused, and the poor communication of the flyer just seemed disorganised.

I tweeted something quickly about the experience – nothing too detailed – since I was planning to write up this post anyway.

https://twitter.com/georgiecel/status/873838747774623745

The next morning, when we were well over what happened, I received a notification for the following tweet:

Hoping to speak to you soon re #kooza pls dm or e: perthmornings@abc.net.au @mikey_perth @nicholascooke @waxan12 @georgiecel @spiffmiffed

— ABC Perth (@abcperth) June 11, 2017

Nick was in it too, and I was keen to share my opinion, so I emailed them. I got a reply whilst we were walking to grab breakfast. They asked for the best number to call me on, so I supplied it and received a call, talking to someone who worked for the radio station.

I didn’t actually think I was going to be live on the radio but… but I was. I was on Perth radio. 😂 (Not that many people listen to the radio anymore.) I kinda rambled a bit while I was on air. Nick was listening in on it live, haha.

https://twitter.com/georgiecel/status/875769015284649984

If you want to hear it, check it out – I am on at about 37:00 minutes. I’m kind of expecting non-Australians to comment about my accent. :P

I am still in Perth for another week and still have loads to share, but I’m using the hashtag #GEORGIEPERTH for tweets related to my time in Perth, so feel free to follow along. 💖