The widely anticipated annual comedy and music event, Rhythm Unplugged took place at the Eko Hotel and Suites on Saturday, December 18.

The event which was hosted by comedians, Basketmouth and Bovi featured performances from Davido, Wizkid, Psquare, Buchi, I Go Dye, Kiss Daniel, Runtown and American singer, Trey Songz amongst others.

For those who couldn’t make it, YNaija is here to give you the good the bad and the ugly- in 9 things we experienced at the event.

1. Little regard for press.

This is unbecoming of organisers of entertainment events, as they’ve formed the habit of limiting the access of journalists to the red carpet.

What’s the point of covering an event if as a journo, you’re restricted to the red carpet?

At the Rhythm Unplugged event, the press were again, treated like unwanted visitors.

 

2. Nigerian time syndrome.

But why always?

Nigerians have become accustomed to the fact that a show will always start late and this year, at the Rhythm Unplugged event, it reached a new height.

By 12am, nothing serious had started as the event attendees milled around, with great impatience and increasing frustration.

 

3. Poor seating arrangements.

This was hugely debated across the various seating categories such as regular, VIP and VVIP. Most people complained about the ordinary-ness of the VIP section as they felt they deserved more for paying far more than extra.

One of the dissatisfied guests on the night even uttered insulting words in anger while exiting the venue early, saying: ‘Rubbish. I can’t believe I paid N25,000 for this rubbish treatment’. Another guest was heard muttering: ‘I can’t stay in there, its just very rowdy and irritating’.

Dear organisers, if you promise a very important treatment to a person, kindly make sure you adequately deliver.

 

4. Over zealous security officers.

This is a regular occurrence at music concerts but at this year’s Rhythm Unplugged, people were manhandled for sport.

While we commend the extremely tight security, the attitude of the security officers towards guests, was far from impressive.

One major occurrence was when popular celebrity PR expert, Paul O of Upfront and Personal, was assaulted by one of the officers- a female- as he tried to get into the hall.

This got the influential figure incensed as he vowed to get the rude lady fired.

 

5. Sound issues.

This is a recurring one for events of this type at this venue so we won’t hammer so much on the organizers for this one but still it’s quite embarrassing when everything goes right for the international artiste while it goes haphazard for the Nigerian artistes.

Crowd favourites such as M.I and Runtown got bumped off the stage because of major sound glitches.

We should do better in this regard.

 

6. Olamide’s performance dwarfs Wizkid and Davido’s.

if you are still hating on Olamide, we think you should have a rethink because he is basically a show stopper and the crowd loves him.

It was stunning to see the crowd demand for Olamide after Bovi claimed PSquare was coming onstage.

When he finally arrived he sent the crowd into wild ecstasy as they sang lyric for lyric with the YBNL boss.

 

7. Fans mobbed Davido.

Davido suffered the ‘you’re a star, give us money’ treatment.

While chilling at the poolside area of the hotel, fans cornered the star, hailed him and demanded that he ‘dropped something’.

The Money singer however, played it cool and promised to settle them while he calmly drank a glass of water.

 

8. Squabble erupts for Trey Songz’ sweat-soaked shirt.

This is quite hilarious as the ladies and surprisingly guys were ready to bring down heaven over the sweat-dripping shirt of the American singer.

After a rendition of one of his many sexy tunes, Trey Songz decided to go shirtless, which elicited screams from the female section of the crowd.

He then threw the shirt into the crowd which got bodies, tables tumbling and glasses shattering as the crowd jostled for that precious piece of souvenir.

 

9. Massive turn-out.

Despite the fact that there were cheaper shows with star-studded line ups across town, the show retained its title as one of the biggest events in December with a consistent massive turn out, year in year out.

Tickets were sold out, tags ran out and the hall was packed to the rafters.