It’s hard not to write this with a hint of a smile. It’s terrible that people got scammed out of their money but… This was so clearly a Scam.
http://www.dafthidden.com/
( This website has been removed by the designer due to questions of legitimacy.)
Ok so this is what happened, for the last week a Daft Punk DJ set was publicized as a secret event, no one knew about it, it was going to be a surprise show. The promoters were unknown, this is a big part of why the scam was so obvious, to put on a show in China takes bucks and guanxi (connections). You need to pass things by the right people and tick all the boxes. Not easy things to do on the downlow as a new promotor. Then a website went up, it looked fake. The english was poor and the style of the website was very different to that of Daft Punks own site. By this point ignoring the warning signs (twitter and facebook had pleanty of doubters) Hundreds of people queued up out side a hastily rented xintiandi (in downtown Shanghai) office and parted with their hard earned to buy tickets for the show (those who bought tickets would be sent an SMS informing them of the venue on the day of the show, also so dodgy!).
Today Pitchfork and Daft Punk’s PR revealed that no such concert would take place and hundreds of ticket holders have been left disappointed. Apparently the scamsters made at least 1million RMB (aprox $146,216).
More info on:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149053-daft-punk-not-playing-in-china-this-weekend
http://www.smartshanghai.com/wire/403/The_Whole_Daft_Punk_Thing_is_Getting_Awesome_Crazy_.html
