This post is inspired by the K-Pop tribute show that’s on tour at the moment. From what I’ve seen, it seems a lot of parents either believed it was a K-Pop Demon Hunters show and therefore for children, or didn’t realise K-Pop was a wider genre and not just a children’s movie and have expressed their frustrations online at some of the content on stage. It reminded me of a tweet that went viral years ago where a girl thought she’d bought tickets to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers but had instead bought tickets to a piping band called Red Hot Chilli Pipers.
So thought I’d ask here – ever completely misunderstood what something was about?
43 comments
Yes! I bought what I thought were kate bush tickets – but it was a late bush tribute act 😂
Not personally but a lot of people did get up and leave the cinema about halfway through Watchmen. I think they expected it to be like Avengers or something.
They didn’t buy tickets, but my very religious and prudish grandparents thought Trainspotting was going to be like Last of the Summer Wine.
They also thought the word “orgy” just meant “party”.
I went to see Evil Dead before I knew it was a cult movie and was offended by all the laughter. Feel pretty stupid about it now
Yes I thought I was going to a free showing of a play and it ended up being a free screening of a recording of that play 🤦🏽♀️ me and my mum couldn’t stop laughing and it was still really good tbf!
My friends and I bought tickets for a pianist performance, just to find out it was just his music performed by a random (and not great) player. The poster had the name of the original pianist in huge letters but the real performer’s name was very small indeed
I’m trying to educate myself and do more worldly things as I get older.
I bought my husband and I tickets to Swan Lake in London. Turns out it’s a ballet, not an adaptation of Black Swan.
In my defence, Black Swan does centre around a production of Swan Lake…. I just didn’t know Swan Lake was a famous ballet…
I remember as a child (so I didn’t buy the tickets) I thought I was going to a football match. We went to the stadium to watch the football on a big TV? Honestly the worst thing ever. Not a football fan now haha
Hardcore Pawn on TV must be a disappointing experience for someone that got a bit excited.
Glasgow Willy Wonka
Bought 2 tickets to see Def Leppard, it was an event where they talked about a book they had released, it was funny to slowly watch at least half the room leave during the talk.
I brought tickets for a theatre show in the local town, I was surprised at the price of the tickets being more than reasonable.
I skipped over the part where it was a live screen link to the actual London show.
Me and my partner were not keen when Early Man decided to become a football film partway through.
Tickets not bought yet but I told my husband I want to go see The Bride! when it releases and he agreed. Basically seemed like Bride of Frankenstein x Bonnie & Clyde. Then I found out it has musical elements, but he was still on board. Today there was an announcement my favourite musical artist has a cameo in it and has done music for it that releases next week. I really hope I love this movie.
Not quite the same but a mate of mine and I once went to watch a film at the cinema, we’d got the wrong week. We looked at the films on offer that night and he suggested sone vampire film he’d heard about. I enjoy a good vampire film so we went and saw it. It was called Twilight New Moon. It was not what I expected.
Not me but there were definitely people in the audience of Book of Mormon who did not know what they were in for
While we’re at it, took my daughter to the K-pop tribute show and observed pretty much 100 under 6s singing along to “pink pony club” which was sung/danced in an incredibly seductive way by a partially dressed lady.
It felt a little awkward to say the least, don’t think I was the only embarrassed parent that day.
I’ve casually listened to Enter Shikari and like them. So my husband and I got some tickets to go see them live. We knew we were going to a concert but we weren’t prepared for the chaos that followed and we were stood towards the front, near the stage. We weren’t prepared for what followed, which is a bit funny in hindsight.
Little did I know that they’ve got a bit of a cult following and traditionally the audience breaks into absolute chaos where they form a wall and charge forward out of nowhere. It was just mental. Anyway, there I was oblivious with my handbag getting thrown about, holding to my husband for dear life. Was very fun though.
My gran in her infinite wisdom bought tickets for a showing of what she thought was Flash Gordon because it was one of her favourite films, turned out it was a screening of Flesh Gordon… she was apparently ‘too embarrassed’ to leave! I still wonder if it was intentional…
Back in 1995 (so pre-internet) I realised that child-me had mixed up Venice and Vienna when teenage-me got to the Austrian capital and couldn’t find the canals I’d dreamed of lazily sailing through in a gondola
Some acquaintances of my parents bought tickets to a ‘70s night thinking it would be lots of music from that era. it was actually an event for over 70s.
A friend of mine persuaded me to come and see this comedian called Derek Acorah, who did a whole routine, pretending to be a spiritualist…we did not last long. It was eye-opening.
I used to go to visit friends in Hull in the early 00’s and we used to go to a nightclub called Spiders. I wasn’t there when the below happened but I can see why it made the national news
A group of deaf people turned up to see QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE because their new album is called Songs For The Deaf, according to Britain’s Metal Hammer magazine.
The 37-strong party of hearing impaired folks turned up to see the QUEENS at the Spiders club in Hull. The group baffled the bouncers with their use of sign language and threatened to call trading standards when they were refused entry to the “Songs For The Deaf Night”.
A spokesperson for the club said: “They were angry and said they had phoned us to check we were holding a ‘Songs For The Deaf Night’. They didn’t see the funny side at all and left straight away.”
No, but I did once go to what I thought was just a flute recital at a local church in which my stepdaughter was performing, only to walk in a couple minutes late and discover that it was in fact a fully blown Christmas service in which I was expected to sing. To make matters worse I had to stand conspicuously by the doorway due to lack of pews.
My partner bought us tickets to what we thought was a band we liked – very indie, slow, dreamy music. We instead ended up in a room equivalent to a very small living room where two people played klezmer music using instruments such as the mighty shower hose tubing as a trumpet. 10/10 all the way
We went to see the joker 2 expecting it to be, ya know, not literally the most shite and miserable atrocity put to screen in the history of film
I was 15 and took a girl on a date to watch Brokeback Mountain. Thought it was a generic western, I’d said I loved those sort of movies growing up. I got real embarrassed when they started getting jiggy.
Yes! A couple of years ago my husband and I bought tickets for ‘an evening with Korn’ at a church in London, thinking it would be an acoustic show. We went to spoons beforehand and had a fair few drinks to prepare. Then when we got there we realised it was actually an interview with the band. Super interesting but not at all what we were expecting.
Sweeny Todd with Johnny depp, they just never stopped singing
50ish years ago my boyfriend and I went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show, because we really liked horror movies. We didn’t have a clue why the audience was throwing toast at the screen, and dancing in the aisles, and yelling back dialogue. Bemused isn’t the word.
The Iron Lady. Wasn’t the sequel to Iron Man after all 😉
Tbf the Red Hot Chili Pipers are a very talented bunch. I’d be disappointed if I’d bought tickets to see them and got the Peppers instead.
When we were teenagers, my friend and I tried to be more cultured and attend a theatre show of a play called Persona, the description sounded vague but intellectual…turns out it was the end of school play from a school of performing arts for people with intellectual disabilities. All the other people attending were family members of the performers….
Ive never experienced this before, but I do have a funny story about an event mix up that always makes me laugh now, although it didn’t seem very funny at the time.
In my 20s I was casually dating a guy, let’s call him Guy A, nothing serious. We met through a mutual friend. Ended up meeting someone else through the same friend, Guy B, who was more interesting and so stopped seeing Guy A. We all stayed friends and spent time together.
One day Guy B invited me to watch a sports event, and I was sooo stoked to be asked out by him. He even offered to pick me up. I told all my friends he asked me out and was thrilled.
When he came to pick me up for the “date”, Guy A was in the passenger seat of the car!
Turns out Guy B did NOT think it was a date at all, but just a regular hang out with friends. I was mortified and had to suck it up and go to the event with both of them!
As a family we went to the circus once when we lived abroad. Arrived outside a classic red and white striped circus tent. Thought it was quite strange that the tent wasn’t bigger when we arrived, but assumed it just meant no trapeze etc.
We went in and took our seats. Maybe 30-40 people there, mostly kids.
The ‘stage’ ended up being a small table draped in a black cloth.
The ‘circus act’ was by an old man and woman who sat behind the table and covered themselves in black cloth so you couldn’t see them, then used hand puppets to act out stories. And these were puppets where they put a plastic head on their middle finger, little plastic arms on index and ring fingers, and legs on the little finger and thumb.
Weirdest performance I’ve ever been to.
You could buy a set of the head/arms/legs outside. Obviously we bought one, it’s probably hanging around somewhere still.
And obviously never let my dad forget the time he took us to the “circus”.
I’m going to see Stuart Mitchell doing stand-up. Thought I was buying David Mitchell tickets. He doesn’t even do stand-up
I got tickets for my girlfriend and myself to go and see the post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I like em, I thought it was a really weird pick for her but she was really up for it.
There were warning signs early, she kept making comments about how weird the audience was which I didn’t really understand, but by minutes into the (22 minute long) first shoegazy instrumental she is losing her shit. Turns out she’d seen the advert which was laid out like
Godspeed
You Black
Emperor
And she was a massive, massive fan of black metal titans Emperor, and also dug the stoner metal band Godspeed, though she’d never heard of You Black.
One of my favourite moments was watching a family squeeze past me at the theatre…mum, dad, 8 year old kid, grandparents etc. the show was Avenue Q, and I was cackling as quietly as I could, but the granda eventually caved before the overture and asked why I was so amused. So I pointed out some of the song titles. I’ll never forget his response. “Oh I cannot wait. The stuck up twat will never live this down…she’s a right prude too!” He was clearly not a fan of the daughter in law. He LOVED the show. Daughter in law not so much. She left with the kid after about 20-30 minutes. Everyone else had a blast.
I went to see Mother! (2017) at the cinema with my friend and it happened to be around Mother’s Day. Saw a lot of middle age couples leaving about 30 minutes looking very confused
I went to see the Tim Burton *Sweeney Todd* film at the cinema, and a guy in the row in front of me clearly didn’t realise it was a musical, because as soon as the first song started up – the film literally opens with a song, the first lines of the movie are sung – he started looking around in confusion to see if anyone else was surprised, then he got up and just walked out.
Years ago my mate bought tickets to go and watch Justice , we thought it was the French electronic duo , they looked a bargain until we found out it was actually a Christian voice choir with the same name , did wonder why they would be playing in Swindon but didn’t wanna question my mate , never did get a refund
OK, so not tickets, but back in ’99 when The Sopranos first came out and was a big hit, someone in my family bought me this book thinking it was some kind of tie-in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sopranos_(novel)
Not a bad book on its own terms, once you get past the fact that it’s about a bunch of teenage Catholic schoolgirls in Glasgow and not a New Jersey crime family.
Not so much the show itself, but more the reaction I’m possibly going to recieve. A whole 90 minutes ago at 11pm, I managed to get tickets to take my 6yr old to see Bluey’s Big Play at the theatre this afternoon. She has no idea it’s even on let alone that we have tickets. She was really excited by the Gabby’s Dollhouse Live tickets she got for Christmas, so we thought she’d love this.
She just woke up sobbing because she can’t stop dreaming about Bluey and it’s annoying her 😒