Queues, chaos and water shortage, BIRN: Unhappy fans at Kanye West concert

Tens of thousands of people gathered on Saturday on the outskirts of Tirana for the much-debated Kanye West concert, known as Ye.

The concert was held at the "Eagle Stadium", an arena built specifically for the event and promoted by the government as the stage for one of the largest musical spectacles ever organized in Albania.

A day after the performance, Prime Minister Edi Rama and majority officials rushed to declare the concert an international success and an important achievement for the country's image.

“Last night, Albania did not just organize a concert,” Rama declared in a video posted on Facebook. “Albania organized an event that, thanks to social channels and the fame of the protagonist, became news in every corner of the world,” he added.

The same enthusiasm was also shown by the leader of the socialist parliamentary group, Taulant Balla.

"Tirana last night was the world capital of music, welcoming friends from 80 different nations of the world," Balla wrote on social media.

But the experience shared on social platforms by some of the fans who traveled to Tirana and their appreciation for the organization of the music event offer a different picture than what the government describes.

On the Reddit forum, fans of the American artist from various countries praised Ye's performance, but harshly criticized the organization of the event and the infrastructure around the stadium.

In their comments, users describe long waits at the entrance, confusion during ticket checks, lack of orientation, lack of water in high temperatures and other logistical problems. According to them, the level of organization did not match the ambition to hold one of the largest concerts ever held in Albania. One of the most shared comments on the forum summed up this contrast with the sentence: “The concert was fantastic. The organization was a disaster.”

The American singer's fans did not overlook the way the concert was financed, expressing criticism of the government's decision to finance the project with 4 million euros from the emergency fund at a time when the country has been engulfed by anti-government protests, sparked by a project to build a resort in a protected environmental area, linked to the son-in-law of the US President, Donald Trump.

"No one is angry with YE, we are angry with our government for using the emergency fund," writes an Albanian user.

Another describes the situation as “wrong timing,” referring to the fact that the funding decision was made during a period of protests against widespread corruption in public institutions.

Criticism also moved to public business rating platforms, where 'Eagle Stadium' faced a wave of negative comments and 1-star ratings on Google.

Commentators describe the project as an inappropriate use of citizens' taxes.

"The stadium's money was taken from health, education and the people," writes one user, while another calls the concert a private activity that "should not have been funded by the state."

A significant portion of the comments also raise concerns about the stadium's safety, questioning the pace at which the facility was built. Some users call it "very dangerous," claim that "nothing is ready yet," or that the construction was done "quickly for profit and not for the people."

Others criticize the condition of the roads leading to the stadium, arguing that the surrounding infrastructure does not respond to an event promoted as the largest musical spectacle ever organized in Albania.

The wave of negative comments towards Eagle Stadium follows a similar wave of negative evaluations towards businesses perceived as close to the government, a phenomenon that prompted the State Police to announce that it had launched investigations to identify the perpetrators.

In the case of Eagle Stadium, there is no engagement of law enforcement to verify whether there is a criminal offense.

"If a report is filed, the State Police will definitely take action," this institution responded to BIRN. Reporter.al