Basically what went down was the third row totally got the shaft when it came to the music, and lighting situation due to the concerts that were happening in the background starting at around 1 pm in the afternoon. And the fact that AA pretty much emptied out during these times because people are either at the events, or didn't like the music that was going on. But Apparently people didn't even notice that there was a third row! So... Yeah totally shafted.
So in response, they decided to make a petition. In being all "professional" with their complaint, they decided to only target the third row, and in fact keep it mostly a secret from the rest of the AA crowd. The second row wasn't affected by the lighting (at least not by much), however we were pretty damn close to the sound as well...
I think my only beef with this is that how they kept it a secret while tailoring it just to their section. They deserve the compromise that AE has given them (though a little too generous, might I say), but it's also unfair that the rest of the artists aren't really getting much of a compromise.
The Artist Villa Idea is great, but how much of it will come out into reality? It greatly relies on what buildings/rooms AE decides to book. IF it's too far away, then there will be little traffic flow. IF it's booked at a smaller venue, then their "promise" of more tables will obviously be broken... Not to mention that the 26 artists that were in the third row will be getting first dibs and free tables... So that greatly decreases the chances of other artists who also suffered through crappy business, and less than pleasurable music...
So was making a thread on the forums about the fact that most of us artists didn't know that there was a petition, wrong? No. Was it a 'professional' way of making a complaint? No, but we still needed to rally supporters, AND find out exactly what the original petition was before we make a formal complaint. The last thing I want to do is to make a formal complaint without having my facts straightened up.
Were the artists of the third row overly defensive? Oh hell yeah. No one in that thread had the intention to strip them of the compensation that they already have received from AE. As far as I know, we were talking about the unfairness that AE has treated the rest of the artists--why would we try and take back something that has already been given? Now that's unfair...
I don't think the tincan/piggyhoho/snakey/yuuri were over reacting on anything in that thread. I believe that the other people trying to defend the 3rd row artists were. If people decided to read the posts, and not jump to conclusions the thread could have been shorter. It was frustrating after posting something and then have an artist from the 3rd row come in and think that you're still trying to strip them of their compensation when we clearly said that we were not and had no intention of doing so.
*facepalm*
I still stand by the fact that it could have been totally worse and we could have actually been attacking each other.
I really don't understand the people at the AE forums... waaay too touchy if not way too dense to comprehend what the difference is between an argument and what a rant/flame/troll fest is.
