This was sent to the fans by Queen a couple of days ago:
'As with the Portuguese show on Saturday you have a chance to win Golden Circle tickets at the remaining 3 live shows in Germany, UK and Holland. If you are attending any of the final shows you will have an opportunity to text/SMS to a special number displayed on the video screen and get your message displayed in front of thousands of fans! One lucky fan who sends in a message will be the winner of a Golden Circle Upgrade – they will win two tickets to get even closer to Queen + Paul Rodgers!'
They did play this 'game' in Cologne last night. The same 10 -15 messages were repeated all over although many fans sent messages that were never displayed. There was no Golden Circle in Cologne, you could get to the stage with your normal Standing ticket if you were early.
The 'special number' was a flirt hotline. Fans were charged 1, 99 Euro for the SMS (normal price: 35 cents) and are being spammed with unwanted commercial flirt emails and other spam. One fan received a message asking what he thinks about the London terror attacks!!
Do not play this so called game
Do not pay 1, 99 euros for an SMS and do not reply to the spam SMS only to pay 1,99 again!
I have no words for this.
In Lisbon I also sent two messages and they didn't show them. They were always repeating the same ones.
You can see that it will be an expensive message as the number is from the UK. 1,99€ is a lot.
In Lisbon there was no golden circle either but there wasn't anything there adverstising that there was a prize for a winner.
excuse me? The WAS a Golden Circle!! about 3500 thousand people could get in. The fence was in half a circle around the catwalk. THAT is the Golden Circle and for THAT area you could win entrance.
So if you already were in that circle, sending an SMSM/Text message was/is useless!
So the first 3500 people could get in that circle, the rest was outside.
You missed my point: The "gold circle" was open to every Standing Ticket holder who came early enough to get there. You did not need a more expensive ticket as in Hyde Park where you pay 10 pounds extra to get access.
The SMS number was a commercial spam and flirt phone line. A phone call cost 1,99 euros. People who took part are getting spam SMS now. There was nothing really to win and only 10 - 15 messages were shown on the big screen. The QOL email did not say it was a flirt phone line. In Germany it is not allowed to fake a lottery in order to make people call such expensive spam phone lines. It's called unfair competition and it's a criminal offence. Even if it's not illegal I still find it very low style to make your own audience call such phone lines pretending it's only to have your messages displayed on the screen in order to take part in a lottery. It's not what I would like Brian and Roger to stand for and I think they should make a public statement about this and apologise to their fans.
I'm sure something went wrong in Germany with the SMS thing Barbara. In Holland everything was OK. No strange things happened with unwanted messages on your phones. And text messages did come on the screens (ofcourse not all of them. But i'm sure i've seen over 150 different ones
In the Netherlands it was big fun really. It sure made the waiting for the concert a lot easier! I do know that a lot, who even messaged 45 minutes before the show, did not see their message appear (I was one of them) but those that did made it, were fun. I only got one repeat message saying my sms was received.
We also sent a message as soon as we entered the venue in Arnhem and nothing happened. Though I did get a confirmation sms. After 1,5 hours we decided to try it again. Simply because we did not care about the money (though indeed it was rediciolous!) and we found ourselves funny enough. ;-)
Unortunately, again, dispite the confirmation sms, nothing ever appeared on the screen.
No spam so far though... *knocks on wood*
Btw: there was no golden circle at Arnhem in ANY way. (Hey, they already put up a screen that split the venue in half to make it look fuller - all attendants with a standing ticket would have fit in the golden circle that is normal in this venue.)
I am writing on behalf of the German Queen-board Queenforum.de
We are also currently discussing the SMS-fraud in Cologne.
How about getting together all people who got ripped off (i.e. sent a message (or more)) and write a complaint to BRian's soapbox. I don'T care about the money! Give it to the Phoenix Trust. But don't give it away to some dubious FLirt-agency!
PS. What about those messages that WERE displayed: Are there any authors here at Queenzone?
In Hyde Park, I was beside a couple with a little girl and they were really happy when their message mentioning how they love each other and how have been Queen fans for 25 years appeared on the screen. So yes, the messages were genuine, but only a few ones were shown. Having said that, I think the whole thing was a fraud as:
1) You were not guaranteed that your message will be shown. And ever worse, the system was showing a message loop that refreshed every three or five minutes, so only a tiny minority was "lucky".
2) The "price": (Golden tickets) did not make any sense in the other outdoor concerts.
3) You give your mobile number to a "dodgy" company that will start sending unwanted messages to you.
But, why we have to complaint to poor Brian all the time? Perhaps he has nothing to do with it. Ok, he is one of the owners of Queen Productions but he has to delegate to other people, particularly when touring. :-)
Scirocco, I think the correct address is the police and not Brian. The people who sent messages and got spam in return should definitely team up and file a lawsuit. It's totally unacceptable to cheat on a paying audience (customers) in such an outrageous way. It's one thing to promise a free download and then charge for the song in the end but it's a a very different thing to rip off unsuspecting audience members with spam phone lines.
I am not surprised that QP has not addressed the issue at all. Sure they will blame the local promoter or whoever else but it was done in the name of Queen.
Totally agree, but I still think that Queen (in this sense Brian, as he is the only one in QP who keeps contact with his fans via mail and his soapbox) should know what happened.
I don't know about Lisbon, in Cologne and Hydepark the SMS service seems to have failed.
In Holland it worked fine, I've seen dozens, maybe even near 100 Text messages on the screen, funny messages, a wedding-proposal, boring "queen is great" messages, etc :-)
If many people send messages, you can't expect all the be displayed. So I was not surprised when the 2 messages of my wife were not shown.
In Cologne, only about 10 were shown, a few hours long... that was indeed a big disappointment.
But instead of stopping the system, they let it run, thát was a mistake...