Fans demand refunds, new concert after Usher, Chris Brown Atlanta show starts late

Fans who attended the first night of Usher and Chris Brown’s R&B Tour stop in Atlanta are demanding refunds or another concert after they say Thursday night’s show started more than two hours late and ended without the experience they paid for.

The concert at Mercedes-Benz Stadium was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, but fans said the show did not get underway until around 10 p.m.

For some fans, the delay was only the beginning of the disappointment.

“It was just Chris standing out there by himself, and we’re all like, ‘Where is Usher?’” Deron Jordan told Channel 2 Action News. “It just kind of set the tone for the rest of the night. We felt like we were sitting at a rehearsal.”

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Fans told Channel 2 that they spent hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars on tickets. They said they never saw Usher and Chris Brown perform a song together or even share the stage during Thursday night’s show.

Fans said the two artists also closed the show separately, with Chris Brown performing the final song solo suspended in the air.

“And we’re all sitting there like, ‘Is that it?’” Rhonda McKenzie said.

McKenzie said she left the stadium feeling like she had not received what she paid for.

“This is my first concert experience that I went through where I really felt gypped,” McKenzie said. “I really thought I did get robbed.”

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McKenzie has since started a Change.org petition calling on the artists to either refund Thursday’s tickets or redo the concert. As of Sunday, the petition had received more than 1,200 signatures.

Other fans told Channel 2 Action News they would be satisfied with an acknowledgment from the artists about what happened.

“An apology would suffice for me,” Jordan said.

The tour returned to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for its third Atlanta show Sunday night. Fans arriving ahead of the concert told Channel 2 Action News they were hoping to see something Thursday’s crowd says it never got: Usher and Chris Brown performing together.

Neither artist has publicly explained what caused Thursday night’s delay.

Channel 2 Action News reached out to representatives for Usher and Chris Brown, as well as Live Nation and Ticketmaster, about the complaints and petition. We had not received a response as of Sunday night.

Both artists shared the stage during Sunday night’s show. There are two more show scheduled for Tuesday night and Wednesday night.

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