Redditor Calls Sitar Player Rishab Sharma’s Pune Concert A ‘Scam’, Shares Disappointing Experience | Instagram/rishabsmusic
Sitar player Rishab Sharma’s concert, Sitar for Mental Health, was held in Pune on Friday. Taking to Instagram, Sharma said that over 12,000 people attended the event. Sharing a clip of his performance, he wrote, “Humbled to make history. 12,000 souls in Pune, singing their hearts out to the sound of sitar.” While the comments on Sharma’s Instagram post were filled with praise, a Reddit user shared a contrasting view.
The Redditor wrote, “So today was the concert of sitar player Rishabh Sharma. It was a full house, but the red flags were visible from the very beginning. Despite the timing being 7pm, nothing started till 8pm. People just sat for hours. A lot of people were either stuck in the parking lot or on the service road to the venue approach. From 8–8:25pm, the guy was more or less just tuning the instrument on stage. After that, till 9pm, there were a couple of performances, and post that, he took a 5-minute break.”
“After a couple of songs on stage, something strange happened. He walked all the way to the end of all the rows and performed a couple of songs there. All the people sitting at the front and middle were so baffled and clueless. At the end, there were nonsensical fire shows, all those cheap stage antiques. And at 10pm, it ended. It bloody ended just like that. People were shocked—what did they even pay for? It is shocking that Pune, which is like the mainstream classical music capital of India in today’s time, was cheated like this. I am not blaming the artist or anyone. It just looks like a soft scam. Overall, it was like: SPOTIFY ARTIST—MEET INSTAGRAM AUDIENCES,” he added.
Meanwhile, Reddit users had mixed reactions to the post.
A user said it wasn’t a scam but that people fell for the marketing. “It’s not a scam if y’all fell for the marketing. I think a big problem is with the fact that people fall for marketing. There are so many great classical musicians here in Pune and in India, and also abroad, that you guys can listen to. But because they don’t market themselves aggressively, people don’t go and listen to them. Then, some artists do market themselves, become influencers, and you guys attend—and you’re surprised why the show was weird.”
Another user felt it was like “Instagram content performing LIVE.” “Ohhh hell yes, it was a scam. In the middle of the concert, he gets up and walks till the end of the gold stand, climbs the podium there, and starts performing facing the silver and bronze stands. Everyone from the platinum stand and above was left shocked, watching the stage with no artist on it… Like, is this really happening? People who could not attend the show, don’t worry—you missed nothing. It was Instagram content performing LIVE,” the user wrote.
A third user stated that people had come with the mindset of attending a disco night. “It was right next to our place, and I don’t think even the people who attended came with the mindset of classical music. They seemed to have gotten ready for a disco night,” read the comment.
