A chance ticket via workmates meant I was off to my first concert in Hong Kong… Guns n Roses! Just as I was getting ready to leave work for the day to head to pre-concert drinks my manager messages me jokingly asking if I know about the concert goers in HK being lame. Confusion and astoundment ensued and eventually I learned that Hong Kongers are famously boring at concerts, not really getting into it at all, resulting in concerts here not having the greatest atmosphere. He gave me some hope saying “if there’s enough expats you might be ok”. With my concert experiences to date being solely in NZ or seeing an NZ group perform in other countries (with a bunch of other kiwis), I had no idea that there was even cultural differences between the way people are at concerts. I had naively assumed that the world over people got really into it and atmosphere was a given. This all had me super curious for what awaited.

Turns out he was kinda right, it was a LOT tamer than I expect a GnR would be if you saw them in NZ but enough expats that it was still a pretty fun vibe, and it was very cool to see them live. They are pretty careful about how many tickets they sell for each section here apparently, and the huge venue was very well air conditioned - so it lacked the normal sweaty heat of being smooshed in with tons of people in GA at a concert, this might be showing my age but I honestly didn’t miss that part!