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| - So I purchased 3 tickets to the December 15, 2017 MS Christmas concert in Riverside, CA for my wife, mother-in-law and myself. About 10 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin at 8pm, a sonic boom from the audio system sent shock waves through the audience. My poor 70 yo mother-in-law and my wife were stunned and our ear drums felt like bursting. The entire audience was completely taken aback and vocally people were not happy with this extreme sound coming from the stage. So everyone somewhat composed themselves and then the orchestra entered and began. Mind you this is a CHRISTMAS concert. So for the first 20-25 minutes the orchestra plays a tribute to space exploration with a space shuttle launch into space and this had nothing to do with CHRISTMAS! Once the conclusion of this first musical number we all looked at each other like, oh boy, what next? Then a video of Chip comes on in a space observatory with a slouchy Michigan sweat shirt saying thanks for coming out to the concert and welcome to the observatory, even if it had nothing to do with CHRISTMAS! After the video, the orchestra then began playing their traditional Christmas music, which was much appreciated and was very good. The videos behind the orchestra was out-dated and juvenile at best. They really need to re-vamp the whole format really. These were $100 a ticket seats too. About 15 minutes into the Christmas music, another sonic boom takes place and the audience is extremely upset, and some people start leaving the concert and yelling at the stage at this point. At the conclusion of this piece, the elderly musician playing piano came forward, and apologized for the loud sonic boom, and the introduced the players. They again began playing music, and about 10 minutes later another sonic boom hit, and people again started leaving. The same musician came forward along with the stage and sound manager and apologized again, and begged the audience to give them 20 minutes for a break and to see about finding out why the sonic boom was happening. So the audience took intermission, and while on intermission, the same elderly musician played beautiful christmas music on the piano which was very nice of him, since he should have been on break. At about 9:15pm, the orchestra reappeared and they began playing the last set of music. It was sounding very good, and then mid-way through the song, another loud sonic boom happened and they continued playing the song through, and then the same musician came forward and announced due to the technical difficulties, they were advised by the "Suits in Cleveland" to cancel the show. The audience was not happy, and some started yelling asking about refunds. The man then came on about 10 minutes later and said that everyone could go back to the Point of Purchase to get a full refund on their tickets. We left the theater about 9:55pm. I contacted my point of purchase, and they verified that the show was cancelled, and told me they would reimburse me within 3-5 business days. This is day 2 and I have not been reimbursed yet. So we shall see.
I believe Mannheim Steamroller needs some serious revamping and possibly new sound people or new equipment. This is a serious embarrassment for the orchestra who were very good, but the technical audio and visual problems are great with this show. Chip needs to either retire and let someone else take over, or get serious about making this a professional show. People paid a lot of money to go to this concert, and it was an extreme disapointment. And please don't play 25 minutes of space exploration to begin a Christmas concert. That was truly sad to start the show. I love space, but not at a christmas concert. Until this show gets revamped, I would never go to another Mannheim Steamroller concert. sadly said.
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