BENGALURU: The Bengaluru leg of South African comedian and TV host Trevor Noah’s stand-up tour was cancelled on Wednesday evening, following persistent technical issues. The much-anticipated show titled, ‘Off the Record’, had attracted thousands of fans from across south India and elsewhere. Following a successful run in Delhi earlier this month, the Bengaluru leg of the show, held at Manpho Convention Centre in Nagavara, was supposed to feature an opening act from New York-based comedian Wilner Sylvince, followed by Noah.
However, the show faced sound issues from the start, causing an uproar at the venue. Within minutes, the performance was halted. Noah himself got onto the stage and tried to fix the issues. However, after multiple attempts, the promoters were unable to find a solution. A frustrated Noah offered the audience an apology and announced that he wouldn’t be going ahead with the performance.
Nearly an hour and a half after the show was originally supposed to kick off, the audience was finally informed that it would be cancelled. “I was looking forward to the show. I had booked the tickets three months in advance. This was on a working day as well, so I had to take leave from the office and get here a couple of hours before the show was supposed to start. All of that only to see the show getting cancelled. But I guess the only positive thing was that we saw him on stage. That’s the only positive takeaway I have from this experience,” said Rohit from Bengaluru.
Similarly, three fans of Noah, who had come all the way from Sri Lanka for the show, expressed their frustration at the promoters. “It’s a bit annoying because the sound team had one job to do and they didn’t do it,” one of them said.“I had a lot of people tell me that the acoustics at the venue are bad. But since this was a stand-up comedy show, I thought it would be okay. But I was proven wrong,” said another fan who had come from Goa.
Rhea Karuturi, a Bengalurean, said, “It’s really sad. This is not a venue that can host any kind of comedy show. They don’t have any ventilation, and I don’t know why they didn’t do a sound check prior to the show. Given that this is in Bengaluru, the tech city, it’s just embarrassing. Trevor Noah too tried to fix the issues, but him having to do that in the first place looks really bad on the promoters of the show.” The promoters of Off the Record did not respond to TNIE’s call for comment.