We all probably noticed that last year's Gayos were pure crap in term of technical issues. Mics not working, lack of space, other things. It's not one or two stations, MBC had sound problems, and SBS... Oh you know I'm not that fond of this station.
I found one post on tumblr gathering few incidents in one place.
Here:
Gathering up all of the rumours about SBS Gayo Daejun:
- SBS “sold” more tickets than there were seats for the festival. They made fans wait for hours before finally refusing entry telling many of them to go home. There were apparently scenes of distraught and sobbing fans, and the police were called.
Those present commented that some of those that were turned away were foreign fans who had specifically travelled to attend, thinking that their ticket would gain them entry. - Normally dressing rooms are divided up to accommodate sunbaes and rookies etc but SBS did not make enough room to allow for the number of artists. Many artists were forced to do costume checks, make-up checks etc in the corridors. If this wasn’t bad enough, the female duet Davichi were forced to change in public toilets. The account specifically points out that Davichi had to change their stockings and their costumes in publicly accessible toilets.
- Infinite Dongwoo’s Lighting Burns: one wonders what kind of equipment was being used and how they were placed for someone on stage to be burned by it.
When SBS were informed that Dongwoo suffered burns, their reaction was apparently “So why was he standing here, then”. The account adds their own rebuttal to the producers: he had nowhere else to go because you didn’t give him a seat. - BEAST Yoseob’s Chair Incident: Yoseob was caught on camera helping to get chairs for B1A4 because the rookie group were not given seats. The questions being: why didn’t the staff do it in the first place, and why didn’t they rectify the situation by jumping in to arrange the chairs when the idols themselves, who are guests, were doing it?
- Faulty microphones: there were microphone
problems all night, but Infinite’s Hoya was actually given a microphone
that the production team had already realised was broken.
As the rap battle sequence started, Hoya personally told the production staff that his microphone wasn’t working but he was ignored. - FT Island’s Lee Jaejin was also seen carrying chairs with his own hands, though it is not made clear for whom he was moving them. But again, what were the staff doing?
- Brown Eyed Girls fans were physically refused entry for pre-recording of the Brown Eyed Girls and missed the entire segment. The reasons given were miscommunication between the security guards and the production team.
- Why did SBS only schedule 1 minute stages for rookie groups? Even if their sunbaes were present, was it right to give only a minute to people who are singers in their won right?
- Yoseob stood for periods of time. There is also a report that Kikwang, despite his ankle injury, was left without a seat. I’m not sure how reliable that report is.
- Some fans are complaining about how some artists received 5-10 minute special stages while MBLAQ had Mona Lisa cut short and BEAST performed only one song.
- A+, MBLAQ fans felt particularly persecuted: many of them were denied entry and their specified fan seating area was smaller than was promised.
- There are industry people complaining that Gayo Daejun is yet again becoming an extended episode of Inkigayo. It does not celebrate Korean music and artists: it has become a “beauty pageant for idols”.
- 2PM were not given a dressing room and had to prepare in the corridor.
Brown Eyed Girls also did not have a dressing room. - Lee Seunggi was a main MC and is a popular singer but his fans were also not given their own seating area… and his microphone had problems, too.
Idols haven’t been silent about the issue either. This is perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen idols speak out so openly about issues at a broadcasting studio:
- Bom: Thanked fans before calling the day “truthfully the worst possible day”.
- Jungmo: “You all did well/struggled hard”
- G.O.: Asked fans not to be too sad. Personally apologised on behalf of others for the fact that some A+ were refused entry.
- Hongki: Apologised to Primadonnas for being unable to get more seats for them.
- Leeteuk: Ambiguous tweet. Some people are taking it as him criticising SM, others are criticising SBS. (Various fandoms, including ELF and Shawol were unable to get access to the SM Orchestra pre-recording).
There’s also an account posted by someone who claims to have talked to the jimmyjib camera operator from SBS Gayo Daejun who goes into far more detail about the individual incidents.
