Saturday night was a disappointment for many classical music enthusiasts who gathered at the National Art Gallery (NAG) to enjoy the live concert of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, nephew of the legendary singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (late). The cause of this disappointment is said to be mismanagement and indiscipline on behalf of the concert’s organizers, i.e. the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) and the Pakistan National Councl of Arts (PNCA).

The fact that hundreds of people, who had bought tickets to the concert, had to wait outside the auditorium for more than two hours marred the joy of watching Rahat Fateh Ali’s live performance. Many of them could not get inside to watch the concert from its beginning because the hall was already full. When they finally got inside, many of them had to keep standing to watch the performance because no vacant seats were available; more tickets had been sold than the auditorium’s capacity for audience.

The event organizer later admitted that the inconvenience was the result of ‘oversale’ of tickets, most of which were sold in black for a price of Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000, and in part due to issuing VIP passes to the elite. In case of the latter, a number of pass-holders also brought two to four family members to enter the concert hall on the same pass. The public waiting outside the auditorium expressed their disappointment over the indiscipline of the organizers. But once inside the hall, everyone enjoyed the classical music’s charm cast by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.