Post by davidhr on Nov 29, 2011 11:52:59 GMT -5
Some web interaction with fans this past week highlighted an otherwise quiet time publicly for Lara.
Lara and her team finally got around to addressing the fan complaints concerning their membership fees. Fans paid 40 euros for memebership this year expecting to receive, at least, the quarterly ‘Farfallina’ publication, but it was cancelled without warning. Since then they’ve been demanding some alternative form of compensation or, failing that, their money back. Now Lara is offering both of those options.
Lara will be giving a concert in Paris January 15th exclusively for fan club members (free, although if they want to bring a companion, they will have to pay 40 euros). As seating in the ‘Gymnaseum’ is limited, fans should make reservations quickly. For fans who cannot attend, their bank cards will be credited for the full amount two weeks after the performance, and that requires the bank card information to be sent to Lara's people (both this and reservations go to mesanges@larafabian.com). There is another restriction on international transfers, so it remains to be seen whether standard bankcards (e.g., Visa, Mastercard) will work.
Lara’s ‘team’ has been saying for months that the situation was going to be resolved, and this seems to be a fair approach bound to make most fan club members happy. The note to the fans indicated that this event would bring a happy ending to the fan-club experience after 5 years, so presumably the fan club will no longer exist. Outside of the Farfallinas (and this concert) nothing was ever provided to members that wasn’t made available to everybody else, just one more example of how her team did not know how to interact with her public. (One can compare this to what other performers offer to their fan club members, and for a lot less than 40 euros).
Lara also publicly thanked her fans on the FB site for their kind emails to her and Lou on Lou’s birthday - she turned 4 on November 20th. Lara’s message was:
----------------------------------------------------------------
My angels,
A word to thank you for all your lovely messages for Lou's birthday... We are really deeply touched by your thoughts, your affection and your messages full of love... In the future Lou will have beautiful stories to tell because of you...
Thanks
Lov... Lara
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lara’s facebook site finally reached 10,000 fans and Lara will choose two fans to send an autographed copy of EWIM. It received a spurt of acknowledged visitors in the past two weeks, most likely because the (very attractive) ‘Welcome’ page now pops up automatically asking fans to hit the ‘like’ button to enter the site. The choice of EWIM is a curious one, given how little she has promoted it.
Lara’s FB site is getting some responses to these recent notices, of the nature of those that used to go to the ‘book of gold’ on her official site – full of heart-felt compliments, but no substantive discussion. Whenever anything the least bit controversial is raised, it is quickly erased by Lara’s people. This is also true in general on the associated fan sites (where Lara’s angels have threatened to boycott a site unless they were more ‘respectful’); almost without exception these sites now simply pass along messages from the official site or show old videos. There is at this point no general forum to go to, for the first time in more than a decade; the active forums of years ago were eclipsed by the official site forum, and now that’s gone. This may make things easier for Lara’s people, but it does not serve to generate interest in Lara. Even the Russian site, once a hot bed of activity, is practically moribund now (and one no longer hears that there will be a new official site created with the help of the Russian fans).
Rather than have it pollute the other aspects of this news update, all the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ comments have been relegated to this paragraph . Fans are already speculating about what Lara will sing at her Paris concert, but one shouldn’t hold one’s breath for anything from ‘Mlle. Zhivago’. The advertisement for Lara’s show in Slovakia on March 13th came out, and it did not mention anything about Mlle. Zhivago at all. Last year publicity for her concerts in the ‘countries to the east’ generally revolved around it and her relationship to the character name. Signs of the times… In addition, while EWIM was probably picked as the gift for fans due to its limited availability, it IS available to fans via her website and from FNAC. Obviously ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ would have been a better option for her French audience, the ones most likely to be chosen, as at least it has some songs in French, unlike EWIM. Furthermore, fans have continually written in asking where to get it. Those requests go unanswered, outside of Lara’s occasional vague comment to the press that it is available on the web from other countries. But as LFIAG’s FB site recently pointed out, Mlle. Zhivago is still not included in Lara’s home site discography more than a year after its release, and only obliquely referred to in the biography on Lara’s FB site (and not by name). So it is not only the film that has gotten the silent treatment from Lara; one would think she did not want to see this album sold. The lack of interest now evident on the Russian fan site is probably due to Lara’s treatment of Alan Badoev and the Mlle. Zhivago film which had generated so much initial excitement, as well as her failure (so far) to reconstitute the cancelled Russian/Ukrainian tour. One imagines that action on either of those fronts could call it back to life, at least to some extent. And, finally, if Lara has truly stopped singing the songs from Mlle. Zhivago (and never has before her French audience), one beautiful story her daughter will never get to tell is hearing the song for her, ‘Lou’, sung in her home country…
It was noted on the Russian site some time ago that Lara is due in Moscow on December 8th for an awards program. We’ll see if she shows up, and if so, whether Igor Krutoi joins her. As we learned from Bev, two weeks ago she went to the U.S. for David Forster’s 4th marriage, so bad back or not, she is not just sitting at home working on Le Secret.
David
Lara and her team finally got around to addressing the fan complaints concerning their membership fees. Fans paid 40 euros for memebership this year expecting to receive, at least, the quarterly ‘Farfallina’ publication, but it was cancelled without warning. Since then they’ve been demanding some alternative form of compensation or, failing that, their money back. Now Lara is offering both of those options.
Lara will be giving a concert in Paris January 15th exclusively for fan club members (free, although if they want to bring a companion, they will have to pay 40 euros). As seating in the ‘Gymnaseum’ is limited, fans should make reservations quickly. For fans who cannot attend, their bank cards will be credited for the full amount two weeks after the performance, and that requires the bank card information to be sent to Lara's people (both this and reservations go to mesanges@larafabian.com). There is another restriction on international transfers, so it remains to be seen whether standard bankcards (e.g., Visa, Mastercard) will work.
Lara’s ‘team’ has been saying for months that the situation was going to be resolved, and this seems to be a fair approach bound to make most fan club members happy. The note to the fans indicated that this event would bring a happy ending to the fan-club experience after 5 years, so presumably the fan club will no longer exist. Outside of the Farfallinas (and this concert) nothing was ever provided to members that wasn’t made available to everybody else, just one more example of how her team did not know how to interact with her public. (One can compare this to what other performers offer to their fan club members, and for a lot less than 40 euros).
Lara also publicly thanked her fans on the FB site for their kind emails to her and Lou on Lou’s birthday - she turned 4 on November 20th. Lara’s message was:
----------------------------------------------------------------
My angels,
A word to thank you for all your lovely messages for Lou's birthday... We are really deeply touched by your thoughts, your affection and your messages full of love... In the future Lou will have beautiful stories to tell because of you...
Thanks
Lov... Lara
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lara’s facebook site finally reached 10,000 fans and Lara will choose two fans to send an autographed copy of EWIM. It received a spurt of acknowledged visitors in the past two weeks, most likely because the (very attractive) ‘Welcome’ page now pops up automatically asking fans to hit the ‘like’ button to enter the site. The choice of EWIM is a curious one, given how little she has promoted it.
Lara’s FB site is getting some responses to these recent notices, of the nature of those that used to go to the ‘book of gold’ on her official site – full of heart-felt compliments, but no substantive discussion. Whenever anything the least bit controversial is raised, it is quickly erased by Lara’s people. This is also true in general on the associated fan sites (where Lara’s angels have threatened to boycott a site unless they were more ‘respectful’); almost without exception these sites now simply pass along messages from the official site or show old videos. There is at this point no general forum to go to, for the first time in more than a decade; the active forums of years ago were eclipsed by the official site forum, and now that’s gone. This may make things easier for Lara’s people, but it does not serve to generate interest in Lara. Even the Russian site, once a hot bed of activity, is practically moribund now (and one no longer hears that there will be a new official site created with the help of the Russian fans).
Rather than have it pollute the other aspects of this news update, all the ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ comments have been relegated to this paragraph . Fans are already speculating about what Lara will sing at her Paris concert, but one shouldn’t hold one’s breath for anything from ‘Mlle. Zhivago’. The advertisement for Lara’s show in Slovakia on March 13th came out, and it did not mention anything about Mlle. Zhivago at all. Last year publicity for her concerts in the ‘countries to the east’ generally revolved around it and her relationship to the character name. Signs of the times… In addition, while EWIM was probably picked as the gift for fans due to its limited availability, it IS available to fans via her website and from FNAC. Obviously ‘Mlle. Zhivago’ would have been a better option for her French audience, the ones most likely to be chosen, as at least it has some songs in French, unlike EWIM. Furthermore, fans have continually written in asking where to get it. Those requests go unanswered, outside of Lara’s occasional vague comment to the press that it is available on the web from other countries. But as LFIAG’s FB site recently pointed out, Mlle. Zhivago is still not included in Lara’s home site discography more than a year after its release, and only obliquely referred to in the biography on Lara’s FB site (and not by name). So it is not only the film that has gotten the silent treatment from Lara; one would think she did not want to see this album sold. The lack of interest now evident on the Russian fan site is probably due to Lara’s treatment of Alan Badoev and the Mlle. Zhivago film which had generated so much initial excitement, as well as her failure (so far) to reconstitute the cancelled Russian/Ukrainian tour. One imagines that action on either of those fronts could call it back to life, at least to some extent. And, finally, if Lara has truly stopped singing the songs from Mlle. Zhivago (and never has before her French audience), one beautiful story her daughter will never get to tell is hearing the song for her, ‘Lou’, sung in her home country…
It was noted on the Russian site some time ago that Lara is due in Moscow on December 8th for an awards program. We’ll see if she shows up, and if so, whether Igor Krutoi joins her. As we learned from Bev, two weeks ago she went to the U.S. for David Forster’s 4th marriage, so bad back or not, she is not just sitting at home working on Le Secret.
David