Fans Pay To See Lady Gaga Live Only To Have Their View Blocked So She Could Film Her Concert Movie
Andrea Raffin | Shutterstock Several people shared their disappointing experiences at recent Lady Gaga concerts on social media, including a Reddit user who posted a pretty shocking video their friends filmed.
The Little Monsters, as her fans are known, were upset after spending their hard-earned money on a bucket list concert only to be unable to see her. The video featured the pop star performing one of her upbeat hits with full choreography and a large group of dancers, along with a very ubiquitous cameraman right in front of her.
The Lady Gaga concerts were held at the Kia Forum in California, and some attendees paid thousands of dollars to attend.
Lady Gaga is currently on her Mayhem Ball tour, and, according to Newsweek, played four shows at the Inglewood, California venue, which is located just outside of Los Angeles. It’s not entirely clear if all of the shows were recorded or not, but the fans present at the ones that were are understandably ticked off.
A TikTok user known as @thatvividsmagic shared her own footage of the show she attended. Her video was a montage of multiple different songs, which all featured a cameraman standing directly in front of Lady Gaga, with all of the necessary equipment in tow. “I love you so much, but I did not buy third row center seats to watch your cameramen,” she said.
Another fan, Michelle Lunn, posted photos and videos from the concert on Instagram. “I think we went to see Lady Gaga tonight? But I’m not sure,” she noted in the caption. “It looks like it will be a great concert film, but it definitely came at a cost to the LA Forum shows.”
As if the obstructed view wasn’t enough, fans also had to put up with a show that wasn’t really much of a concert.
Newsweek reported that no official announcement has been made about a Mayhem Ball concert film, but Lady Gaga previously released concert films for her Chromatica Ball and Monster Ball tours, so it seems the most likely explanation. According to TikTok comments, one concert-goer claimed they spent $1,500 on their tickets, while another said the night cost them $2,647.
To make matters worse, fans weren’t just forced to stare at a cameraman instead of their favorite singer. Lunn added in her post, “There were also long, boring lulls between every song that pulled you out of the energy, and you didn’t feel like you were at a concert so much as individual music videos.”
There was no legal reason fans needed to be notified of the filming ahead of time, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have appreciated a heads-up.
According to the San Diego Troubadour, the Supreme Court case Katz v. United States ensured that people have a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This can be helpful in a lot of different situations, but a concert isn’t one of them. You can’t really go to a huge concert and then complain that there were cameras present when that’s just a part of the show.
Laura Stanley | Pexels
However, that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do to record a concert like this. Many other concert films (including, supposedly, Lady Gaga’s previous ones) have been made without causing this kind of drama. And, as another Reddit user said, there’s really no possible way Lady Gaga could have not known this was an issue.
Many fans across social media platforms expressed a desire to have their tickets refunded since they didn’t see the show they paid for, but it sounds like that will be a struggle as well. Ticketmaster’s website insisted that “all sales are final” unless the show is rescheduled or canceled. Unless Lady Gaga intervenes, these fans may simply be out of luck.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
