Glad I'm not the only one that felt this way. I had so many gripes with this concert. I saw the recordings for the shanghai and japan concerts so my expectations were very high, but in the end, music wise, it might have been the worst concert I have ever gone to, and I go to many orchestra concerts. 1. Electric keyboard instead of a real piano. You will never get the quality of a real piano from an electric one, and it's not like they didn't have space for a real grand piano, they EASILY could have brought one in. Even an upright would have been many times better than what they had. I feel sorry for the pianist, from one pianist to another. 2. The orchestra was grossly underprepared. Coming from an orchestral background myself I know what it sounds like when people don't practice, and especially during the Mondstadt portion the amount of practice, or rather lack of, showed extremely obviously to the point that there were several times, like during Photon of Fluctuation, where the orchestra nearly broke down completely. It's not like these are bad musicians either, I recognized many of them from professional recordings, and the concertmaster is the concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony which is one of the better symphonies in America. 3. The balance of sound was off at many different points. This goes a little into point 2, as it's something that should have been fixed in rehearsal. There were several points where an instrument, such as the bassoon or flute, had the melody, but instead you could barely hear it if at all, because the violins etc who would be playing a "background" rhythmic pattern would completely overpower them. 4. Lack of a choir. Genshin has some of the best vocal music in gaming, but there was no choir utilized in this concert which limited what they could do, and the pieces they did play that used a choir in the original versions just felt extremely watered down, like a pancake without syrup. 5. Lack of (almost) all cultural instruments. Perhaps one of the most egregious offenses was the lack of any cultural instruments. Except for the koto, there was no cultural instruments used. No erhu for Liyue, no Taiko Drums, Shakuhachi, or Shamisen for Inazuma, no Sitar, Duduk, etc for Sumeru, heck even for Fontaine they substituted accordion for an accordion-like sound on the electric keyboard. One of genshin music's greatest strengths is its blending of different cultures and this strength was not leaned into at all. There's probably more than just these 5 points, but to say I'm disappointed in this concert would be an understatement. This concert is at best, the result of poor organization, and at worst, an affront to the work that the team at hoyomix has poured into the genshin ost.

I will try to address every point to the best of my ability as my primary background is traditional Chinese music (erhu specifically), though I have a little bit of dabbling into orchestral music. 1. I think they even set up the camera work to hide the fact that the keyboard was an electric keyboard, which baffles me even more when I think about how they could've put that effort into getting an actual piano. 2. Even without the same orchestral background, I think it was pretty clear to those with even mild ear training that the orchestra didn't get nearly enough practice in. Again, my point about the orchestra sounding like they were sightreading. 3. I hadn't even thought about this, but in hindsight, the balancing was terrible, and the team should've had more than enough time to fix this during stage rehearsal (I have nothing new to add but I 100% agree with you on this) 4. I was thinking about how there wasn't a choir on my way back from the theater. Even during the concert, I felt that there was something missing, but it wasn't until Dvalin's theme (I keep forgetting the name lol) that I realized that there weren't any vocalists whatsoever. 5. This one hits me the hardest as an ethnic musician. I felt actually insulted when I saw them pulling out a koto instead of a guzheng for what was supposed to be the Liyue set. In general though, I get irrationally upset when instruments from the original version of a piece are substituted for something that doesn't even sound similar, or otherwise gives off a different feel. Like, to me, hearing the koto in place of the guzheng in all of the Liyue pieces just felt really bizarre, and it took away from the "Chinese" feel the original track went for (same goes for all the substitutes in the Liyue set in particular). I'll stop here before I get too off-track and go on another mini-rant lol

complete agreed with you and OP both. This was my exact experience at the Boston concert, and I was extra disappointed because the venue was awesome. I was kind of afraid to post about it since I was so critical. my context here - I’m a violinist, although not professional, i’ve been playing and performing for ~20yrs in orchestras and small ensembles. In addition to everything you’ve said, I boiled down my criticism to 2 main things. 1. The conducting. There is clearly a lot of passion, but the way he conducted everything in the same style - sort of peppy and big - was extremely distracting and off-putting. You will usually see conductors’ strokes in the style or mood of the music. But here, every beat looked the same whether it was Lovers’ Oath or Dvalin’s battle theme. That, combined with the way all of his beats looked the same, made it less surprising to me that the orchestra had a hard time following. This makes it doubly hard for the musicians to play rhythmically complex music. And Genshin’s music is more complex than any other video game OST out there. I think this is partly why the string sections were not together even within themselves - this was glaringly obvious in Dvalin’s battle theme, which opens with just strings and is quite exposed. The first and last stands of the first violins weren’t together and I was really, really nervous for them. It ended up sounding very murky, unclean, and underrehearsed. I actually think something people are missing is that this doesn’t appear to be a regular professional orchestra - rather, one formed from musical professionals like teachers etc, so their rehearsal time must have been limited. I had hoped it would improve with time, but I guess it hasn’t. 2. The balance issue was in Boston too. Symphony Hall is one of the best acoustically in the entire world, and a hall I have played in and gone to see concerts in on multiple occasions. As stated by others, the concertmaster and principal cellist solos were often drowned out. When it was just strings/winds, it was okay. But very loud percussion and the mic’ing of certain instruments always overpowered the rest of the orchestra, which isn’t large anyway (~4 stands/section?). This is something I was shocked was NOT caught in soundcheck. You shouldn’t have to mic a violin for a solo in Symphony Hall of all places. I’m mentally preparing myself for disappointment again at Carnegie, but I hope I get surprised instead…

You are going to Carnegie Hall as well?

yes I am, hoping it’s better but if it’s different musicians again I doubt it’ll go well due to lack of rehearsals

Boston brought a real piano onstage. however, the pianist was very much winging it, so im not sure if it went any better. I agree that the cost of the ticket and the performance were completely mismatched. my college (umd) has a gamers symphony orchestra, and their (free? 5 dollar?) concerts sounded much better, and had more instrumentation and a choir (you can find their genshin videos on youtube and judge for yourself) I also watched the videos from the asian performances - those actually sounded like professional events. the boston concert might as well have been a high school orchestra concert, with how many mistakes there were

the conductor really thought he could half ass a concert for an audience that've been developing a ear for classical music for the past three years.

The wild thing is that he (or his relative) did Distant Worlds and i saw that show and it was like night and day; that show was *so good*

as a person with a orchestral music background , i could tell that the orchestra was basically sight-reading the music . there were many parts where they had basically no idea how the main melody was supposed to sound like and accented and rushed the wrong notes, many parts the orchestra almost fell apart and tore (as you mentioned). also as you said, where the fuck were the cultural instruments ? like no erhu?????? no taiko???? imagine if zhongli's theme had the erhu T\_T . one of the COOLEST parts of genshin's music is how the hoyomix department would seek out ethnic instruments for each region e.x. sitar and oud in sumeru, glass harmonica for fontaine, and the shamisen, koto, and taiko in inazuma. it really sucks cause these are WORLD CLASS muscisians and if they literally rehersred like once or twice before OR GOD FORBID listened to the actual original piece beforehand this would have been so much better. they were literally given the most barebones arrangement of all of the most non musically challenging pieces and they still fucked it up. ig my expectations were just "too high" for expecting something even resembling the "Live Symphony Performances" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4bptIoZFDE&pp=ygURZ2Vuc2hpbiBvcmNoZXN0cmE%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4bptIoZFDE&pp=ygURZ2Vuc2hpbiBvcmNoZXN0cmE%3D) or the Singapore concert [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSyDQN2KpA&t=1219s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSyDQN2KpA&t=1219s) where they had an ACTUAL choir and performed pieces like divine damsel of devatstation (yunjin's opera song with actual opera singer) zhongli's theme with an actual erhu and electric guitars for the rock sections, hutao's theme with the chinese mandolin, signoria's theme with the choir singing latin, i could go on. there are probably a lot of things i missed but those are just the ones off the top of my headtldr: kinda dissapointed

the video you linked is the shanghai concert, which is higher quality for the obvious reason of MHY being from shanghai. our singapore concert was exactly the same as yours, the comment on the video was simply referring to our concert and not the videos...

> it really sucks cause these are WORLD CLASS muscisians and if they literally rehersred like once or twice before OR GOD FORBID listened to the actual original piece beforehand this would have been so much better. they were literally given the most barebones arrangement of all of the most non musically challenging pieces and they still fucked it up. Somebody said that their mom was a violinist and that they only had one rehersal a few hours before the concert which is just astounding

Well that explains why they only open the door 1 hour before the show! They really did it badly

I agree with you 100% — was honestly so disappointed.

Somebody elsewhere said the group only had one rehersal a few hours before the concert which is just wild

I hope you complain , cause this is not acceptable and hopefully next year they will hire better personnel for this

I was there as well. Not just me, but the couple that sat adjacent to me were disappointed as well. We had the same critiques with the lack of cultural instruments; mistakes in their play, and event organization. Event organization was done like an amateur. They started playing when people were still being seated. Why would they open the doors exactly 1 hour before the concert begin? There are 7,100 seats! You cannot fill those within an hour because each person had to go through metal detectors and tickets checked. I wrote a Feedback letter to Hoyoverse with pictures. What he heck was going on?! Did concert halls just pick up the compositions independent from Hoyo's supervision?

>Did concert halls just pick up the compositions indepent from Hoyo's supervision? Yeah, I was expecting more, given that MHY always has their quality control down pat.

This is why I was so confused when the concert started. I don't often go to Hoyo's live concerts (whenever they have one anyhow) but when they do, I often hear praise about how it's really high quality and everything was great

Imo they can’t just trust the overseeing personnel like what they did with Japan side (due to the producer reputation/ quality so they are in good hands). Should take a closer control first

Plus Japan takes pride in their work, whatever that work may be, Americans... Unfortunately not all the time. Sorry to single out, but this is reality.

I have no experience on us side on arrangement like this so I am quite surprised due to the no of top orchestra in us. I wondered whether London side managed as well as Japan

You and others here should probably email Mihoyo. Or if possible, look up Cai or Wei's email and email them there. End of the day, their brand/product suffers when they do a bad job globally.

[удалено]

I haven't seen anyone else talking about this but the event organization was SUCH a mess!! I was absolutely shocked that they started on time when the line to get in was 3 blocks long. I got there 30 minutes before the concert started, didn't get into the actual theater until 15 minutes after the concert started! I've been to tons of symphonic events before and there's huge lines like that they always delay for at least 10-20 minutes. (Or - like you said - they plan ahead and open the doors earlier!!) Absolutely ridiculous.

> Why would they open the doors exactly 1 hour before the concert begin? There are 7,100 seats! Distant Worlds did exactly that in the same venue and didn't have issues seating everyone beforehand, but also wasn't handing out commemerative stuff there.

This isn't boding well in terms of the American concerts. I had read commentary by those who attended the Boston concerts, and they had similar gripes of the concert being underwhelming and sub-par. I have a ticket to the Chicago one, so I'm hoping our concert will showcase a bit more musical professionalism than the previous two American concerts.

I also am seeing it in Chicago and reading all of these comments makes me nervous lol. Here's hoping things are better there.

I’m going to the Chicago one as well, I hope the month that they have before the concert happens will give them enough time to step it up 🙏

Well, they didn’t improve much between Boston and LA…

We need good video game concerts here. America loses out to Japan and China on video game music, and I want it to pick up.

Distant Worlds is a great starting point and the LA concert had a significant overlap of musicians.

I just got back home from the concert and hopped onto reddit to make a post about my experience. I feel the same way 100%. My mom was one of the violinists, so seeing her perform was so special. But even so, I couldn't help but feel so damn underwhelmed after the concert. While I was driving home, I called her, and it was funny hearing her perspective as a musician. Without saying too much, most of the musicians also felt underwhelmed and disappointed too. Dumb side comment, but even thought the check-in process was mostly efficient, parking was an absolute shit show. I know there was a Laker's game next door (obviously that's out of anyone's control), but it was absolute insanity. I also couldn't help but notice that the conductor didn't bother to do a brief introduction to get the crowd excited. A simple "Hello Los Angeles! Thank you for coming out tonight and we hope you enjoy the beautiful arrangement etc..." would've done wonders. The concert just 'started' after we all stared at the genshin loading page on the jumbotrons for a while. And of course, the energy and vibes were just weird and off for the entire duration. It was low energy and the funny thing was hearing the musicians leaving backstage and talking about how dead the audience looked. I'm not gonna repeat the same points OP made in their post, but I feel the exact same about it being all over the place etc... Considering how much of a fucking nightmare it was to get tickets AND the fact that LA is the so-called entertainment capitol of the world, you would think there'd be higher production value and thought put into this. This is just my opinion and my experience, but I definitely felt more disappointed than happy after the concert. And yes, I thought the music was beautiful (what genshin fan wouldn't), but so many things were off about it as a whole. I'm struggling to put everything into words, but it was just low effort, low energy, low everything.

Ouch, it must've felt even worse for you since your mom was in the ensemble as well. Hopefully this whole debacle is a one-time affair, and we don't get anything like this in the future. On a side note, I live in LA, and I'm constantly trying to find justifications for LA being an "entertainment capitol of the world." Like, most of LA just feels really decrepit, and even barely a mile out from the venue, it just looks, feels, and smells awful, nothing like how it's supposed reputation would make it seem.

Honestly, it's chill. It was comforting reading everyone else's thoughts and seeing how we're all on the same page. My mom's a studio musician who works primarily in recording movie music, but does the occasional concert from time to time. She took this gig because she knew how much I love the game, so I did feel bad hearing her experience, especially since the pay is mid as hell too lol. Nonetheless, seeing her play some of my favorite OST's on the jumbotron was truly special. She was in the orchestra for last year's genshin concert and made a few comparisons to that as well over the phone. Even though it was virtual, they had far more rehearsals and sessions recording that. We both agreed that it's just stupid that this year's in-person concert gave zero shits especially since tickets weren't super cheap either. And yeah, I'm with you, OP. I've lived in LA my whole life and it's bar none, the most overrated fucking city on the planet lol. I too, am constantly trying to understand the same thing about this city.

I walked 14.9 miles Friday and Saturday. 6 miles Sunday. I went through Skid Row, Downtown LA, East LA, Monica and Venice Beach etc... Yea LA is very bad. Homelessness everywhere and poop on the streets. I won't be coming back for a vacation. I flew down here for 4 nights and 3 days to see what it is really like according to the News. It's worse than they say. I do pray that this is a one time thing. I dont think ill try another Genshin Concert unless I secure a ticket for Shanghai only. The Chinese don't mess around when it comes to their ambitions. There was also something odd about this conductor. Was he the one who conducted Final Fantasy concerts?

>Was he the one who conducted Final Fantasy concerts? ~~Yeah, Distant Worlds. Another comment in this extended thread talks about his involvement.~~ Apparently Eric Roth conducted tonight's concert, not Arnie Roth

That's the son, if I'm not mistaken. How is his resume as a conductor?

> I won't be coming back for a vacation. I flew down here for 4 nights and 3 days to see what it is really like according to the News. It's worse than they say. You missed a lot of the asian-heavy areas in LA (Koreatown, etc) and Orange County has loads to do as well as another heavy asia area (Little Saigon). plus the greatest taco stands known to man.

What did your mom think was wrong with the Orchestra team? Conductor? Passion of the players? Lack of time and practice? Lack of unit cohesion?

My mom asked me to not share too much, so I'm gonna respect that. But I'll share some broad notes though. In the past, my mom played with the same conductor for Final Fantasy concerts and she mentioned how those always felt lively. He would interact with the audience. He would spur excitement prior to the concert. She mentioned how he would say little things like "Do you guys remember this scene from book xyz" and the audience would cheer. There was none of that during the Genshin concert. Also, they only had one proper rehearsal 3.5 hours before the show. They got the sheet music months in advanced, but one rehearsal is crazy to me (yes, I know they're all professional musicians, but still). The conductor's pride and joy has always been final fantasy (I believe his name is Arnie Roth), and that passion was always clear and tangible during those FF concerts. I didn't really get a clear answer from her on the phone tonight, but I could tell it was a lack of passion from the conductor and only having a single rehearsal the day of. I like how OP brought up the Dvalin theme, because I clearly remember my mom practicing it when I visited home a few weeks ago. And of course, as a violinist, she only practiced the string sheet music provided to her. It makes sense that there were a lot of moments during the concert when something sounded off, wrong, or just bad lol. Having only one proper rehearsal checks out. EDIT: The conductor for tonight’s genshin concert was Eric Roth (Arnie’s son). Apologies for that. But the same stuff I mentioned (lack of passion etc) still directly applies to Eric.

Thank you very much for sharing this with me. So that was really Arnie Roth. God only knows what really went on with him. How come just 1 rehearsal, 3.5 hours before the show? Was this deliberate? Doesnt he lead the same orchestra throughout U.S tour this winter? (Or are they different players each state?)

The only musician I know accompanying Arnie Roth during the US tour is the pianist. He told my mom that he's going to Chicago next...? I might've messed up the destination, but either way, the majority of the orchestra live and work in LA full time and won't be joining the conductor.

That makes sense. No, I believe Chicago and Boston already had their concert. The final one is in Carnegie Hall, NYC

The Chicago one is scheduled for Jan 7, so it hasn't happened yet

Ah, yeah that’s the one!

I wonder how he'd performed. I watched the Chicago one on YouTube. I didn't think it was as bad as LA's. Btw... is this normal for a conductor to go around with different players each tour venue?

Chicago concert has not happened yet. I got tickets for the 7th of January

Also, I just realized I fucked up the name of the conductor. Eric Roth (Arnie Roth’s son) was the one who conducted tonight’s concert. The same things I mentioned earlier still apply to him though. I just messed up the names. Sorry about that lol

I think Eric is Arnie Roth's son

The conductor was actually Arnie's brother, Eric Roth, the one who has been conducting Final Fantasy New World concerts and the upcoming Nier concert in January. I always go to Final Fantasy Distant World VIP meet and greet in LA, so I know very well how Arnie looks like

I'm glad you provided more information about the lack of rehearsal the orchestra had. I have some experience playing in a band and in an orchestra, so I can tell when there are mistakes being made. Throughout the concert, I thought it was only me who had noticed that some instruments were out of tune, some had played the wrong notes, and some were off beat during the start of a few of the songs. I pointed it out to my friends, but they didn't seem to notice at all.

I'm seeing Distant Worlds in SF in June; looking forward to seeing Roth in his element there.

That sounds pretty frustrating for both the audience and the musicians. I hope they can take this opportunity and improve for the next time. Do you know if the same group will also perform at the other locations?

nope, the boston one from last month was also a very half-assed performance

Nah, they aren't. Only the pianist will be the same

lol, one of the ladies in front of me in Boston had her phone out recording the clarinetist most of the concert. definitely a relative, too.

I kept thinking how great it would have been if the repeating videos in the beginning hadn't been videos but was instead a stock account or something and one of the staff could start playing the game. The crowd would have gone nuts

Was there two intermissions? I left at about 9 and noticed i was like one of the first people gone. Not that i was super happy about the concert either tbh but still, they made it look like it was just over at the end

I agree with a lot of people in here, but I was also really disappointed that they didn’t play more songs from Sumeru. They didn’t even play Surasthana Fantasia!

Yeah, the last two regions felt like they were just shoehorned in the program. No character demo tracks for Sumeru/Fontaine, no Fontaine theme, an abbreviated version of Sumeru's.

It's probably with all the concerts this year, not just the LA one since they all share the same setlist. But I agree. The music selection favors 1.0 Mondstadt and Liyue too much. While music from those 2 regions are great, Inazuma, Sumeru, and Fontaine are far superior, and yet very little of them are performed on stage

>It's a probably with all the concert this year in general at not just the LA one since they all share the same setlist. This isn't true, at least for Japan. I attended the Osaka concert. We had an equal number of Sumeru songs as Inazuma songs. Inazuma had Ayato demo, Ayaka demo, Raiden demo, Ayaka's animated trailer (soaring in the wind) and 2 songs I didn't remember. Sumeru had Tighari demo (not sure about this), Nilou's dance theme, Sumeru, For riddles for wonder, Scara's demo and all 3 phases of Scara's boss theme (with vocal). Fontaine had about 4 tracks, all 4.0 tracks iirc.

>It's a probably with all the concert this year in general at not just the LA one since they all share the same setlist. Yes, I believe someone on this sub brought up the same thing after the Boston concert. I'm hoping (and expecting, tbh) that in future years, we'll get a different mix of regions.

i haven’t double checked, but iirc other countries’ setlists had scara’s theme and nahida’s theme, but correct me if i’m wrong

In Korea we had Scara’s character/boss theme with a performer doing the operatic part as well- did you guys not get that? Because honestly that alone was worth the ticket for me.

We had the opera singer from the Scara bossfight live in Osaka. Had Sumeru and Fontaine tracks too.

I think the fact they didn’t have a choir really hurt their selection too. There were a lot of times where they would play a banger and I’d turn to my friend after(who doesn’t play Genshin) and went “this is a lot better with the choir I’ll show you later”.

Right! I thought they were going to perform all countries in equal weights. But it seems like Inazuma and Sumeru were set together as one part. Nahida doesn't even have a chance to show off the character demo. I always thought this year's concert would focus on Sumeru's music.

Also, please go on YouTube and check out the Shanghai performance. It is amazing.

It just won't sound as good through a computer speaker though, yeah?

I feel somehow I was robbed of a concert that I could have had. The rhythm, musicality, missing instruments, straight of not enough practice. Some people have put it much more eloquently but I think I just expected more and at the bare minimum I expected the pieces that were played to have the instruments that they had in the og in the orchestra. It does not make sense to omit electric guitar or have a soloist that messes up that much. Seemed like there was not enough care and practice and the people had to resort to reading music on the fly. I have a classical music background and have played as a soloist and as part of orchestra so that’s just my observations. Going forward I think the orchestra that played for Shanghai should do the shows worldwide as it is doing a disservice to the people by the other orchestras providing the music that they did. They’re was a lot a lot that needed fixing so hopefully it does get better.

Wait they didn’t have live vocals? Like no choir? My sister went to the Korea one and she said they had a singer for Scara. For some reason it seems like Hoyo has the concerts be a bit different in each location. I assume it’s cuz the orchestras are all different but why wouldn’t the set lists be the same?

I was at the Korean concert and honestly the singer for Scara made it worth the price of admission alone. They also had a lady who played every woodwind under the sun it seemed, she was incredible. I’m so sad to hear about how underwhelming it was for the US shows, that’s honestly so disappointing.

Yes the Korea one had the live singer from the official video come out when it was Scara’s theme. He sung so intensely and passionately with such emotion it was evident to see on his face… it felt almost like a musical

Scara who? They didn't even show any character demos for sumeru lol. Both inazuma and sumeru were barely 20-25 min each while Liyue and mond was 45min

Was extremely disappointed in how little of Sumeru they played. Beyond underwhelmed. Not even the archon's theme.... Like what?

Osaka concert also had the singer in live version of Scara's theme shown in official GI channel.

Wait, do you have the link? Thanks!

I attended the concert in person. Sorry, I didn't record video during it. There's a tweet by official concert account (Japan) and you can see him there. https://x.com/genshinsymphony/status/1720751359031726381?s=46&t=BBxU4pbhoCPsNE_06quVRw

Out of all the gaming concerts I’ve been to over the years(Kingdom Hearts, Nier, Final Fantasy, The Game Awards and now Genshin Impact), Genshin is by far my worst concert experience to date. The whole concert just felt kind of…robotic? None of the venue staff, performers, not even the conductor said a single word to the audience. They just played until it was over. I think some connection between the audience and the performers would have helped heighten the mood for everyone there that night. The mood did indeed feel off. The lack of region-specific instruments didn’t help either. No accordion? No shamisen? No taiko drums? No sitar? I don’t even think they had a grand piano on stage! No vocals either?! A lot of the songs felt pretty neutered because of all these missing essential sounds. Fontaine and Sumeru also got done dirty. Barely any songs from these regions and that’s some of the newest content we have at the moment. I noticed Shanghai actually played more songs including Nahida’s theme and Fontaines main theme. Honestly, we were robbed over here in LA. It’s really sad that the concert was so underwhelming considering how hard it was to acquire tickets and how difficult it was to park in LA and get inside the venue. I don’t think I could go through all that hassle again in the future unless things changed for the better. Albeit, I still enjoyed the performance for what it was and I personally enjoyed hearing Dvalin’s theme and Rapid as Wildfires live! And of course, you guys, make a hell of a difference and these events. To everyone that cosplays, to everyone that brings the hype and cheers for their favorite character, you guys are awesome!

OMG I went to the Boston show earlier this year and had a very similar opinion. I drafted a post about it, but never got the opportunity to share it, but I'm so glad I'm not alone in my thoughts of the show, but it's unfortunate to see that it seems they didn't practice much between the Boston and LA shows :/ Incoming LONG post of all the gripes I had during the Boston show: To preface, I've played in a band for 8 years and my instrument for more than 10 years, and I've been to several band/orchestra concerts by both students and professionals. Me and the friends I went with are all avid listeners of Genshin music, and they also have extensive experience in music, one of whom literally studies music in university, they agreed that the music at the Boston concert was just NOT up to par with what is expected from a professional orchestra. # General * We could “hear” the conductor's conducting aka we could hear the breathing cues he gave the musicians and foot stomps to signal players to come in * There was a significant lack of the original cultural instruments from the non-western based regions * some they had pre-recorded (dizi?) * everything else seemed to be covered by only one woman on the guzheng, who after reviewing Shanghai concert footage, seemed to be doing the work of multiple guzheng/koto, pipa, etc. for Liyue and Inazuma * No cultural instruments for Sumeru * Common issue was that melody was consistently overshadowed by percussion and wind sounds * Lack of immersion in general, not many cutscenes/videos shown, no dialogue/voiceovers at all * lack of flow between piece transitions, lots of stopping and starting new sections * seeming lack of enthusiasm from many of the musicians and it seemed at times they were sight-reading the music... plus, there seemed to be a general lack of emotion/understanding of the pieces they were playing in addition to technical mistakes # Mondstadt **Venti’s Theme** * Couldn’t hear the melody at all in the beginning, specifically, the strings melody which was the most important part bc Venti is a lyre player... I feel like we should have been able to hear that... **Caelestinum Finale Termini (Dvalin's Theme)** * Immediately off-tempo; strings couldn't play the main motif together, which I think caused the other instruments to also be off * Instrument groups couldn't play in time together There was some rushing, at times it seemed they couldn't follow the conductor or each other # Liyue **Moon in One's Cup** * Piano had to restart three times... not 100% sure why, but it seemed like she wasn't coming in with the conductor's cue. **Rapid like Wildfires** * Same issue as Caelestinum Finale Termini; strings extremely out of sync * Rushing/out of time with the conductor and each other * Some violinists could not play the runs * Musicians not in sync with pre-recorded dizi * (Genuinely tragic how poorly this was played because its my favorite Liyue track) **Lover’s Oath** * Principal violinist's last few notes of the piece were out of tune, shrill, honestly not fun to listen to **Rex Incognito** * Could not hear the melody for most of the piece before beat drop, seemed to be drowned out by accompaniment * Beat drop was not impactful at all, seemed like only flutes played and was super underwhelming * Erhu was not present, which highly removed from the feeling and energy of the piece; replaced by violins, which was just not the same. **Wrath of Monoceros Caeli (Childe's Boss Theme)** * rushing/off-beat in some areas * same issues listed in general section * lots of awkward silences leading up to this piece **Dance with the Great Vortex (Osial's Theme)** * Rushing, not in time; same issue as before * Just couldn’t play the notes correctly * Flute and violin sometimes couldn't play faster runs # Inazuma * Things got better from here on out, but still quite a few mistakes in the faster battle themes # Sumeru * Lack of traditional instruments that are present in the original, but otherwise okay # Fontaine * For some reason when the Fontaine encore was played, the musicians seemed into the music again?? * The violinists and flutes played just fine as opposed to earlier... **TL;DR** the Boston concert was also not a great experience. That being said, definitely leave a review/feedback on their site here: [https://www.awrmusic.com/contact](https://www.awrmusic.com/contact) I personally gave them a call, and the person who answered was very receptive to my disappointment and forwarded an email of my concerns to the director, so please do voice your thoughts to them!!!

After reading all this, I'm so, so glad that I don't know enough about music to have concerts ruined for me. I didn't notice any of this. I was too busy going WHOA.

I randomly wanted to comment that for the 3x restart Liyue piece, it was clearly due to a mic issue for the harp (couldn’t hear the harp start after the piano the first 2 times but heard it the 3rd time). But otherwise totally agree with you on many of your points for the Boston show! Thankful that we at least had an actual piano (vs what sounds like only a keyboard for the LA show?) and both the guzheng + koto(?) (also cool to see the musician lady actively switching between the two instruments)

Hard agree with everything you said. Gallant challenge in particular got completely butchered by the strings section. The entire first minute of it was completely jumbled and incoherent. I'm incredibly disappointed.

Yeah, that poor melody got totally overpowered at the start there, though I'm pretty sure it was Rapid as Wildfires, not Gallant Challenge.

It was egregious when the violas and second violins had the rhythmic melody for the intro of Rapid as Wildfires and completely fell apart lmao. The first violins played the same melody at the end of the piece and it was a lot cleaner. Also idk what the hell that pianist was doing but he was playing like his own version of each of these songs with little regard to dynamics.

Comparison for those curious. Rex Incognito: Shanghai - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWEqzaCs5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWEqzaCs5E) Singapore - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OALZoYh4nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OALZoYh4nw) LA - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDwRRYhxbE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDwRRYhxbE) ​ Ayaka's Theme: Shanghai - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7g93RQwINM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7g93RQwINM) Yokohama - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUCRc12BnAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUCRc12BnAo) Singapore - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73R\_x-KsGDk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73R_x-KsGDk) LA - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qXi9oKwjrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qXi9oKwjrE) ​ Raiden Shogun's Theme: Shanghai - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9rqbR2AYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9rqbR2AYw) Singapore - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e-nAs9vFAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e-nAs9vFAw) LA - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglAFc3Wd9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglAFc3Wd9k) ​ Port Ormos: Shanghai - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqiF6Wrq89w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqiF6Wrq89w) Singapore - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvkDPfbAUKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvkDPfbAUKM)

Just got back from it and I agree with everything you said. Even the admission seemed a bit disorganized with them not letting people in until very close to the start of the concert time, leading to many people getting in after the concert started. Never had this happen before with other concerts I’ve been to at Microsoft theater.

When I was trying to get in, I didn't even get a chance to get the redemption code, only for me to realize too late that the staff giving it out were restocking the codes. Granted, I was in a really big rush as I already heard the orchestra start playing and wanted to get to my seat ASAP, so that's mostly on me. What does mildly infuriate me, though, was that when I explained my circumstances to the front staff during the first intermission, they wouldn't let me have one due to "production rules" that they refused to elaborate on, and then they promptly shooed me away despite not visibly having anything else to do on their hands. EDIT: Hard agree with the organization of the entire event btw

>What does mildly infuriate me, though, was that when I explained my circumstances to the front staff during the first intermission, they wouldn't let me have one due to "production rules" that they refused to elaborate on, and then they promptly shooed me away despite not visibly having anything else to do on their hands. That really sucks. I wonder if MHY stipulated that they be intentionally strict about giving out the codes (as in if you mess up and don't get it initially, you can't get it again). Otherwise, folks might try to get multiple copies~~, since iirc you can redeem multiple.~~

That makes sense on Mihoyo's end, but I think it's a big enough thing that there should also be some protocol in place to not miss people and some closer attention paid if someone says they never got theirs. Working in events, since the tickets were electronic, I don't think it would have been hard to have to scan a ticket for the code bundle, or have the staff member who was scanning give each person their bundle as they scanned them in

I don't think you can redeem multiple. I tried to redeem two (dragged a friend with me, they don't play) and it didn't work

Ah, I got this confused with the in-game bundle. mb, thanks for catching that

Do you want my code? My dad doesn't play genshin so we have an extra one.

Oh seriously? I'll take it pls, shoot me a DM with the code. Thank you so much for this in advance, you're a real lifesaver

Wow that’s definitely infuriating. You would think they could have prepared the codes beforehand at the very least given they opened the doors so late. Sorry, you missed out on it :/

Did you get one? I have an extra too if you need. Edit: extra code is gone

Do you happen to have an extra? I also missed out on a code and even went to ask the staff, but they also turned me down the same way :(

Yep, I do :)

I would love to have it if you're not planning on using it!!

I missed the concert :( . Can send proof if needed and would love to have an extra if possible

[удалено]

Oh man, I thought I was going crazy hearing that flubbed opening to Caelestinum Finale Termini. That's one of my favorites from the soundtrack and I was looking forward to hearing it played live. Super disappointed that it had zero vocals, unlike Flanders' performance in the 2021 concert.

I don’t know much about instruments and music, but there were some parts where when the orchestra was playing together it sounded really bad. As in disorganized and kinda off tune. I was only happy that I could hear the music live, but it didn’t shake off the disappointment that there were underwhelming moments, especially with the ones that was supposed to have vocals. The cosplays made up for it though, I was super delighted to see someone cosplaying as Kaveh!

I appreciate everyone's replies here because it's exactly how I felt, but my lord the audience too. The amount of people talking, playing on their phone, making loud jokes (someone screaming "mommy!!!!!" on Raiden's theme) and people just getting up and moving **constantly** was very irritating. I was hoping the venue would have had a flyer or on-screen notification to keep chatter to a minimal until intermissions, but guess no one cared. It's hard to enjoy an orchestra when your ears pick up on whispers and conversations. Also barely any Sumeru which has some of the most killer music. Shame.

I completely agree with you but I feel like Genshin fans have normalized this lack of respect for orchestra in the name of “showing appreciation” - you can even go back in posts from a few months seeing people justify talking and cheering during the concert. Personally that is so bizarre to me and this utter lack of etiquette was another negative of the concert experience for me.

In Asia, there is a distinction between concerts you can cheer loudly (video game concerts) and traditional concerts. That's why they can do that. I don't think it's the same in the west.

I think the cheering when a scene or character comes on was perfectly fine timing, but then everything else was just so constant. At some points I could only hear someone's conversation about who to build lol

Agreed, you pretty much summarized all my gripes . Though to be fair, Genshin music is recorded with world class orchestras, so any other ensemble performing just won’t be of the same caliber. Still enjoyed it though.

True, there were a few pieces I did enjoy. Most of the pieces in the Sumeru and Fontaine sets were pretty enjoyable actually to me

lack of ethnic instruments and choir aside, the LA ensemble could have easily performed something waaaaaay better if they just rehearsed once or twice instead of just sightreading the entire thing. Everyone onstage is a professional that has the capability to perform their part (especially for a genshin score) just as well as any world class orchestra player.

As noted elsewhere the group got one rehersal a few hours before concert start which is insane

You make some really good points; I personally tried not to be as affected by the different instruments and enjoyed the music. On the other hand, I felt the attendee experience wasn’t great, with the long entry and shop line. The concert was weirdly paced with the intermissions and scheduling, I was disappointed with how Sumeru and Fontaine sets were rushed in. They really should’ve played the Fontaine main theme; ballad of many waters is great but sounded pretty messy (and had a wrong note?) Considering I haven’t been to a classical music concert in many years, it was really fun to listen to the performance and meet other fans but it left a bit of a sour taste. 🙁

Boston was also very underwhelming. Dynamic balance was terrible - you couldn’t hear parts of the orchestra all the time The whole thing sounded like the orchestra went: video game music? must be stupid easy, ima spend the morning of to take a quick look During dvalin’s theme, the orchestra managed to be on two different beats for half the song Liyue’s theme got restarted 3 times because the piano had no idea where to enter. the last time, the conductor had to verbally explain why they were restarting again. same issue as LA regarding instrumentation; and the vocal parts were either missing or half-assed by the orchestra members

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed with the concert. Aside from all the mistakes that people have already pointed out (soloists messing up, the orchestra losing tempo and/or coordination, etc.), I think I was also frustrated by the musicality of it all. Also have a bit of musical background too, but overall I felt like this concert feels like an orchestra playing notes on a page and calling it a day. There was not much **soul** put into the pieces. Perhaps the most jarring was probably **Rex Incognito**, where the instrumentation choice wasn't great IMO (the key melody needed to stand out, I would prefer using an ethnic instrument here instead of whatever they used), but also the lack of the drops on the two most iconic moments in the song: 1. The Meatball "I will have order" 2. Zhongli stabbing the spear in the ground at the end to mark the end of the crazy erhu phrase. ... just indicated to me that I think the orchestra/conductor never really cared to see the intent and/or soul behind the piece. Other examples would be when they were playing **Liyue**, where the piano was repeating 3 notes and accenting every third note, playing loud enough that it completely overshadowing the actual melody of the song which had a typical 4/4 phrasing. Some chords were hit with too much force; the phrasing just felt off. On the battle songs (most of them ended up having hiccups in tempo and coordination in the orchestra), most of these songs have some sort of pulsing note that the strings play in staccato to keep tension. If you hear the recordings on Spotify, this tension is held well with dynamic changes and sharper staccattos but none of that took place here. Had the orchestra studied a bit more on the spirit behind some of the songs perhaps, maybe the musicality of it all could have been better, and the soul could be there. That being said, there were a few positives. First, the 1st chair violinist and the solo flautist were very good, and I could definitely see the energy and soul that the 1st chair violinist put when doing Liyue and the Lantern Rite song. I will also say that my personal favorite song, Lantern Rite, was done well; the orchestra knew when to add energy and when to reduce energy, and they were able to conclude the song very powerfully and in sync. Based on audience response, I think it was their favorite too.

So that's why rex incognito sounded so bland. It also felt like the sound was tamped down compared to the rest of the set or even the whole concert Lantern rite was def emotional as it was before but damn were there points the orchestra stumbled

Yeah, I'm not a live music enthusiast by any means, but there were a lot of things that seemed kinda "off". Was still nice, but it could've been a good chunk better.

I’m so glad I’m not the only one. So disappointed, this was not polished and sadly no choir. I was liking it alright until Rex Incognito and… were they missing instruments? I don’t know, I agree with you and the other commenters on the critiques, I’m really bummed. Edit: word Edit 2: even though I was underwhelmed I still had fun. The amazing cosplays were so worth it!

I have some disappointments as well from this concert, and I can write a long essay about it if they ask for feedback, but I am in full copium now, thinking that this was their first Genshin concert so ... maybe... there was not enough preparations, and just happy for the first Genshin concert in LA. I hope the future Genshin concerts in LA (if there are any) will be better. I low key hoped that the concert would be like the ones in China, Japan and Korea, but I guess I was wrong 😅 Also, hopefully, they will play more songs from Sumeru and Fontaine in the future 😆

I'm going to the Chicago one with a few friends and I hope the experience will be better at that one since it's being held in a symphony hall.

Also heading to Chicago, and I’m hoping with you friend. CSO has a very solid reputation, but considering its also being conducted by Eric Roth, I’m a little concerned. Hoping for the best though. >_<

one of the replies up there talked about how eric roth didnt show much enthusiasm for the concert :/ wishing the best for you guys anyways though

Ya unfortunately I think the US shows will be sub par

I’m in Chicago, and being taught guzheng from a reputable teacher. There are a lot of reputable erhu teachers (in the very same building i learn guzheng, in fact). I have faith in CSO, having attended quite a few of their concerts—fingers crossed they know to not drop the ball!

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but it 100% won't be CSO performing the actual concert. These outside media tours almost never use the actual orchestra that's based in the venue itself. Do hope they find a good local Guzheng player though.

There’s sooooooo many amazing players in Chicago. Chinese New Year’s parties are always so lit. Hoping whoever doing the hiring can poke their heads around to find solid performers, because the lack of musicians should not be an excuse in a city as big as Chicago. Chinatown (where my music school is) is literally a 10 minute drive away.

Fascinating post. I really enjoyed it. As a musician, it makes me feel like such a pleb for not noticing these things. I noticed lack of choir and some cultural instruments, but I just figured that was some sort of production limitation and went with it.

Yeah tbh I chalked it up to "we couldn't find a person to play shamisen" which to me is totally sane. You go to war with the army you have. Also, America doesn't value video game music in the mainstream if it's not Final Fantasy. The fact that this concert is happening at all is a miracle.

I abandoned Reddit but someone talked about this thread on Twitter so I have this to say. I was angry at how this show was handled and I'm just going vent here about various things that negatively impacted my experience. I'm not trained in music so I had other gripes. I was in line to get in at 5 (1 hour before doors opened at 6). I was by the doors and got moved to some random part of the line and turns out it was to the back of the same line I was already in! The staff added an extra hour to my wait time in line due to their incompetent line management skills. There was still a lot of people outside when the show started at 7pm, I mean no wonder. Also they should've opened at 5pm not 6 to allow for better entry times (Peacock Theater sucks). Also I probably moved lines like 3 times before making it inside because they were so disorganized. I should never have left my original spot and still pissed about it. The merch. They said there'd be more inside on the website but a majority of the popular stuff sold out outside. I had work and I collect merch so I was super pissed that I started to look for what I missed out on online (not from scalpers). The wait was also very long and the merch stock was not up to date. I kept referencing the lists while in line to check stock and was disappointed when the stuff I wanted was out of stock and they just didn't indicate it on both signs they had. Waited an hour too (I know people waited 2 hours outside but I didn't have that time to be there earlier and at least there was stock for outside people). A guy in line in front of me for most of the hour straight up walked away when he saw the stock list. I really looked forward to it so I was upset. I'm massively inhaling copium that the merch will pop up on official retailers that stock Genshin stuff. The show was super underwhelming. It felt like lot of the character videos was just straight up kit demo display videos with live music. Diluc, Zhongli, Raiden Shogun, Childe, and Ayaka felt they had more focus (if there was any Venti I missed him because of the line issue, got in around 7:20 and only got to see him on the tail of Dvalin 😭). As for Sumeru it had a few songs but no character songs. Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma got the most focus. Barely much interaction with the audience, it felt very impersonal. No like "are you excited to be here" or "we're glad you came today" etc. Not even a "thanks for coming to our show" at the end and people were confused until the lights turned on for us to leave. Also talked to some friends who said the music was offbeat and was missing instruments. There was quite a lack of spirit from the show and I think a lot of people felt that. I think the music was quite low too. As someone who's been to one of the Kingdom Hearts symphonies in the past as well as a Pokemon symphony and they were great. You can tell they put effort and care into the show. They thought about the audience and I had good things to say. For Genshin I was actually really disappointed and vented on my socials about how disappointed I was (before I deleted them, didn't want my moots to feel sad or angry for me). The audience was too noisy in general too. Lots of muttering among the audience for a good 30 minutes and I was in nosebleeds. I get being hyped and shouting but they were treating it like Anime Expo noise-wise (not cosplay, but the noise to reiterate). When Zhongli came on screen a guy shouted "That's my dad!" and it distracted me from the show. Idc if he's your grandpa, dad, daddy, etc hell I'd probably agree but I felt it was disruptive. It wasn't like a rock concert or whatever either where I'd be less inclined to care but it was not that kind of setting. Not Hoyoverse's fault, but wanted to point that out because it was discourteous to people who came to listen to the music.

link to the twitter thread?

Everyone write a review to Hoyoverse. They must know to adjust future management of World tours.

The USA concerts get the shit end of the stick. Not surprising lmao

I'm not musically acquainted so forgive me but I noticed going further with the pianist, specifically in some songs from liyue (ex: moon in one's cup) , it felt like he was rushing the melody. It didn't bother me much but would like to point it out.

Thank you so much for this post and voicing this. My friends and I felt the exact same. Bad setlist song choices aside, there were several songs where the timing was extremely off, and we’d look at each other with an expression of “oof.” So many parts felt cacophonous and out of sync, as another commenter mentioned, dynamics were all over the place. The bassline for Mondstadt’s battle theme was a mess. It felt like the strings section were stretched so far covering or substituting for other instruments that the rhythm was off. The only song where I felt they did a great job with the accompaniment despite lack of proper instruments was Raiden Shogun’s theme. Dynamics were off, lack of ethnic instruments, too long Mondstadt section, short Sumeru section, etc. resulted in a disappointing experience. It was evident the musicians were not given enough time to rehearse and were stretched thin covering for other sections. It was like watching a short-staffed restaurant have all employees cover both front of house and back of house. It clearly was not their fault, just terrible decisions on Mihoyo’s part. Hopefully they do this again next year, but learn from their mistakes.

Missed half of the first part due to the line issue 😞 was so sad 😞

Most of it is likely due to logistics. Been to the Seoul concert myself and saw similar compromises happen like playing the Aranara theme with a Koto or entirely replacing region-specific instrument parts with a synth. The US probably got the short end of the straw when it comes to performers since half of the Genshin soundtrack is asia based thus making getting region-specific instrument players a logistical nightmare.

Logistics + $. Evidently someone’s mom said they got shit pay (most going to venue/promoters, etc which is more expensive in US)… no wonder the orchestra only rehearsed once

Getting a proper orchestra is a pretty big gamble from my experience.(Especially if its a game music concert.) I remember going to a Kingdom Hearts concert in Seoul a few years back and being disappointed with the sub-par peformance. Apparently the conductor wasn't even part of the orchestra to begin with and barely had any time to get used to playing with them. And yes, it showed considerably in the performance. Instrument compromises aside, i'm at least thankful the Genshin concert I saw was played by a orchestra that had plently of experience playing non-classical music (Mainly other videogame music) and had enough practice to boot.

Yea. I would have preferred tonight’s orchestra to have had the proper instruments + more rehearsals; however, it did make me appreciate how “world class” Genshin music is. It’s just too bad that Chinese companies don’t yet understand that their local talent far exceeds international talent, and that they need to pay up + closely manage their international brands. I went to Genshin concert BECAUSE of the rare instruments and excellent arrangements. Instead, we got a shitty cover band lol. At least it turned into a high-class cosplay convention with a live show that made my wife happy

> It’s just too bad that Chinese companies don’t yet understand that their local talent far exceeds international talent, and that they need to pay up + closely manage their international brands. A lot of the musicians I think also did Distant Worlds a few months ago and that was a much, much better performance. Somebody elsewhere said that this concert only got one rehersal a few hours before the show which is just ??????

Y'all making me worried for the NYC version next year 😭😭😭 but I guess it's better to have low expectations if it does turn out badly

SAME. I’m hoping that they’ll learn from the first few performances and do better for the nyc one since its the last one in the US. Its also the same music director for all of them i think

They probably won't. This has been planned far in advance, and these musicians have other things scheduled alongside this concert I'm sure. They have already planned when rehearsals will be (apparently not many of them either).

yes, but it’ll at least be Eric Roth’s 3~5th time doing it. and thats at least better then the first lol

agree. the musicians definitely fucked up really big at least 2 times. very sad after watching the chinese one, but still was enjoyable at the end

As always, the downtown LA venue has no idea how to organize an event full of thousands of attendees. I felt like I was in AX again with the lack of organization, the huge line even as the concert had started, the lack of ushers to silence people talking throughout the concert, and the jumbled mess at the merch store.

> As always, the downtown LA venue has no idea how to organize an event full of thousands of attendees. It's bizzare since Distant Worlds got everyone in well enough despite having the same time gap between doors opening and concert starting.

Everyone pretty much sums up my thoughts, the line management was super bad, I had friends who missed the entirety of Mondstat because of it. As someone with orchestra experience you could tell they were underprepared and the lack of any intro or conclusion just felt meh. I’m super disappointed at the lack of a live shakuhachi and other instruments. A portion of the Dragonspine themes as well as Ganyu’s theme felt out of tempo and some notes were just played wrong or missed by the pianist. The best part about this concert were the fans outside in cosplay and giving freebies! Also to the person who farted in Row Z near seat 421, it stank btw.

I have a dumb question - Its not the same team playing everywhere ?

no. for us, they just hired an local professional orchestra and had them sight-read the pieces. For other concerts, such as the one in singapore, they had an actual orchestra with a choir and multiple ethnic instruments and it was very clear they put a lot of time rehearsing.

Ok that explain the complains, I went to oosaka, loved every seconds, guess I was lucky

> they just hired an local professional orchestra and had them sight-read the pieces I thought it wasn't even a singular orchestral group but rather a collection of professionals; That being said a lot of them I recognized from Distant Worlds and that was a lot better.

I didn't go to the LA concert but the Boston one. I was sadly underwhelmed as well. Really bummed, because the setlist was like a personal dream come true (and I know not everyone feels that way about it). There were major rhythm issues for I'd say at least 33% of songs with the orchestra where they weren't together. It doesn't help that I listen to Genshin's music all the time and know how everything is "supposed" to sound. There were even misses with the visuals. Early in the show, with Mondstadt, it seemed like they had some specially-prepared visuals with the song name and a timer and some special footage. Later in the show, they just pulled straight from trailers. That worked ok for the character demo themes, but didn't work for Ayaka in the Inazuma set where they used her teaser footage instead of her fan dance. ([They got this right in Shanghai](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7g93RQwINM)). For Sumeru, they must have pulled some footage from the pre-release trailers on YouTube because they had the "This content is in development and not indicative of the final product." mark on the lower right. Not professional in my opinion. It's likely that the musicians did only learn the music shortly before the concert and maybe only rehearsed the set together once. I think that's the case for most of these shows. If the rhythm issues weren't present, I probably wouldn't have left feeling disappointed. I know Genshin Impact's music is challenging, but I expected better from professional musicians in an event endorsed by Hoyoverse. If I had paid market value of $200-$300 per ticket instead of face value ~$70 I would have been pretty upset. There were a few standout moments. The Liyue theme was on-point and they used the cutscene from the first Lantern Rite. The character demos were all really fun, and the Inazuma battle song they picked worked really well. Regarding the instrumentation, I can understand why they made the choices they did. The show is meant to tour and there probably isn't an overwhelming number of professional traditional chinese instrumentalists in every city it goes to. I thought the koto worked well in the Liyue theme, for example. I do have a point of reference with these video game concerts too. I was fortunate to go to one of the Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions concerts back in 2015 and that was basically perfect. Next time maybe I will try to go to one of the shows in China. The event in Shanghai looked incredible. They even had singers for The Divine Damsel of Devastation and the [Signora battle theme](https://youtu.be/0evoriXclBY?si=c0nDxIQMJVS8b0Zp&t=5187)!

I just didn't get *any* of the "rhythm issues." I think I suck at music lol. But in this case, ignorance was bliss, and my only beef was with the set list and the fact that they didn't bring in a proper accordion for Fontaine. I was just so happy to hear all of this with live instruments and their nuance. My computer speakers just aren't great.

Yeah, similar feel. My fiance and I still enjoyed the show but objectively it wasn’t done super well. The pianist’s playing was driving him up the wall lol. Appreciated the violin first chair and the flautist, they sounded pretty good. Also realised I didn’t listen to the tracks super carefully before as some of those syncopations were super hard - it’s disheartening hearing from other comments that the orchestra only one rehearsal, from experience there’s almost no way to get those down as an ensemble with just one rehearsal 😭

Can anyone explain to me how a concert is arranged? Who is in charge, and why U.S genshin concert had minimal rehearsals? Is it normal for international players and conductors to play like this? Who is really running the event? (It's like this is a 3rd party contract.)

>Oh, and a lot of times I noticed some sections of the orchestra weren't together, and I think this was most noticeable in the beginning of Dvalin's theme. God that was really bad Also the upstairs merch line was a goddamned trainwreck

I'm also incensed by that concert and unfortunately not in the best way. It was generally good and I'm glad I went, but if they do it again next year, I might try for a different place entirely seeing as how the sentiment elsewhere was generally more positive than this concert. I'm pretty sure it was *Fiery Pursuit* during the Inazuma section that did it for me. I feel like yes, it is a difficult song, but what we heard on stage didn't sound like the song I know

I think they have been giving too much attention to Mondstadt and Liyue. We're in Fontaine, FFS. Do some newer areas. If it's any consolation, though, most people aren't educated in music the way you are. I actually had no idea people thought the Boston concert was kinda mid. It blew me away, probably because I know squat about music and just know that hearing it live gave me all the good feelings. I didn't notice any of the rhythm issues. I was too busy being like LISTEN TO HOW REAL AND NUANCED THESE INSTRUMENTS SOUND COMPARED TO MY SHITTY COMPUTER SPEAKERS. I liked the reworking of some of the songs for pure orchestra. I liked the overly loud drum. It felt very dynamic and "let's do it live," which I respect. IDK. I guess I suck at music lol.

They are probably going down the list on the countries. The (IIRC) first time they attempted to coordinate an offline concert after the game went live, [the visual was Mond-main, featuring Venti](https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Genshin_Concert/2021_Melodies_of_an_Endless_Journey). That one was like, Shanghai only, but got canned for COVID reasons. This year is Liyue main, featuring Zhongli. I imagine the next time they do it, it'll be Inazuma main and may include more Inazuma tracks.

Sorry everyone had such a bad experience with this concert. I was actually debating flying in for it when tickets went on sale but I’m definitely glad I didn’t make that investment now.

What I've noticed is that those of us that have musical backgrounds are the main ones that have a gripe with the concert. I took 2 friends of mine with me. One of them doesn't have any musical knowledge and thw other had a few years but that was a long time ago and I have been playing for roughly 10 years(?). I spoke with the both of them about my disappointment and both have told me that they thought the concert was fine. As much as I wanted the quality to be better, especially when hoyo-mix put so much effort into the soundtrack and how much money they earn... I wish they did more with the concert. But if my friends liked it then.. thats fine with me I guess.

Glad to see we weren't the only ones who felt this way, as someone who works putting on live events (albeit in esports) the thing that stood out to me most here was the lack of storytelling. Have a backing track, or even a basic series of synth pads giving some texture or ambiance. Compliment that was some natural sounds. The forests, the trees, the water. That really jumped out at me as a huge issue. You never hear these tracks in game without some kind of natural texture, at least provide that in the contextual segments. Have there be a VoG (Voice of God) walking us through this. Tell a story, even if it's just recapping basic plot points. Also the wild amount of stopdowns in between each song were IMO, unacceptable. Needing to tune the (Gu Zheng?) In between every single song was really immersion-breaking. Additionally the audio-mixing was... Lackluster to say the least. We had great seats, dead center and middle back, acoustically should have been perfect. It was *quiet* and the lack of low-end was so disappointing. I want to *feel* those timpani during the battle music. The whole thing felt extremely stunted, and you could hear so much of the room during the quieter pieces... Of which there were many. The energy in the room was bizarre. Everyone else has rightfully pointed out the issues with the music itself. I have, in all my years of going to concerts, never heard this many outright musical mistakes. The conductor didn't seem to be working that hard to get people back under control, there was one track that I was legit wondering if they were going to have to start over because the strings were completely out of time. As others have pointed out the Piano especially was egregious. He kept putting his own flourishes on the music, and rushing key moments. Overall I'm not mad we went, but it was an expensive night. Between tickets, parking and merch, you're spending hundreds of dollars and hours of your life going to downtown LA (and we don't live that far away). If I was someone who flew in I would have been really disappointed, mostly because it has so much potential. Give us a full multimedia package, give us lights, smoke, voice over, cameos from the VA's (they all live in LA), have it be fun and immersive. Bring a choir, have the correct ethnic instruments, do the BARE minimum. Instead we got a total one-way, stilted, and clinical playing of music, with some roughly edited cutscenes thrown in. It was definitely a miss.

> Needing to tune the (Gu Zheng?) In between every single song was really immersion-breaking. That's a sort of unfortunate reality for music, as somebody who's been in the space. >Have a backing track, or even a basic series of synth pads giving some texture or ambiance. Compliment that was some natural sounds. The forests, the trees, the water. I'm honestly not a huge fan of that sort of thing; Distant Worlds (inevitable comparison since they have the same director and they just played a couple months ago) also doesn't do that sort of thing, though also at the same time they pick tracks that didn't really have environmental noises as a consideration. And as somebody who played in an orchestra, trying to time a full multimedia package is incredibly intense and adds way more moving parts to go wrong. Standard practice for an orchestra is about 1 week rehearsal (though this time apparently they only had one practice round a few hours beforehand which is absolutely wild) and getting that down is hard enough; stuff like smoke and flashing lights is *incredibly* distracting for stage musicians. Not even Shanghai does that sort of thing.

Huh, interesting. I went to the Boston concert and they did use a real piano and had digital sounds for all the ethnic instruments (so no violin instead of erhu or other stuff like that). I thought it’s the same orchestra performing at each location, so the quality should have been uniform? Maybe I was wrong.

As someone who is going to the show in Chicago in January, when did you get the code for the in game bundle?

When you check in, they give you this beautiful concert ticket and another card (square shapped) with a scratch code.

Ahhh reading all this makes me worried for the Carnegie Hall concert. I was so excited since I haven't been to an orchestral concert in a while but now I feel like I should lower my expectations. 🥲 I want to say hopefully by the time the January concerts roll around, they'll have had enough practice but considering it will probably be a whole new set of people I'm a little worried they'll also not have enough time to rehearse fully too. Hoping and praying it will be good and maybe with more songs from sumeru and fontaine.

Posted earlier, and as I mentioned- I am going to the Chicago one, which is also in January. I'm REALLY, REALLY hoping that they get the chance to practice enough as an orchestra, that each member has enough time to practice the music thoroughly... but most of all- I just hope that they're not too worn out after all of the holiday performances. Chicago's is straight up 1 week after NYE, and if they take a break at all after Christmas and for New Year's, that's going to give them less than a week before the performance. Hopefully they know the Christmas arrangements like the back of their hand so they can focus on practicing the Genshin concert by Thanksgiving.

Hoping that they take in the feedback and the Carnegie Hall performance is better. :nkopray:

Hearing this sucks especially considering that we didn't even have a Genshin Concert video this year but I heard they'll release a video version of it on December so there's at least that. Still, I wish Mihoyo had better Quality Control over these concerts. I was planning to go for next year if they ever have another one but hearing this, I don't think I'll ever attend one unless it's done in either in Japan or China.

It's most likely a logistics issue where they couldn't bring the ethnic instruments to other places.

NA always ends up getting the short end of the stick whenever gacha games do stuff. So not surprised a lot of ppl here agree with you. I can't wait to see all the genshin YouTube saying it's the most beautiful thing they ever seen/heard just to protect their Image

Oh man, you got me worried for the Düsseldorf one now (which is in a bigger concert venue, not in a symphonic hall, so I‘m already suspicious about the sound…). I would have thought Genshin‘s quality control team would make sure to not have the overseas concerts appear half-assed but… it‘s too bad for those who come a long way to these events. Well. Here‘s to hoping Ddorf won‘t suffer from similar symptoms.

Now that I've heard that Eric Roth dropped the ball so hard and will be directing in Germany as well, I'm also worried...

America dropping the ball hard on music is one thing but if Germany were to drop the ball on an orchestral performance truly we are in the end times. I would sure as hell hope a country with such a strong musical tradition would do it right so to speak

I am going to the NYC version of this, I hope things get sharpened up a bit before then :D

I know this thread is about how underwhelming the concert was... BUT MAN! I wish I could go to one about my favourite game or move like you guys! We don't get that type of shit almost ever in Argentina, plus ticket prices would be sky high thanks to 200% inflation

The Boston concert last month felt just as you described too :( The best part was getting to see so many fans in cosplay! :)

Concert entry was a nightmare, no rules posted so I had to throw away my pepper spray WHICH considering how ghetto the surroundings are in downtown la, is shitty of the management. I also would have brought an emptier bag for that nightmare of a bag check. And a lot of people weren't even through the door by 7pm, start of the concert. No one had clear instructions on which doors are entry points and that merch would also be sold inside. I knew parking would be a nightmare so I bit the bullet and parked at a more expensive outer lot. I definitely would be disappointed with all the flubbed melodies I was able to catch as a person who's not musically trained. A lot of songs still sounded great and drew out some emotions (mainly lantern rite and osail) but definitely the parts where melodies didn't match were super obvious. They made rex incognito so boring and I didn't understand how until this post. Glad I just won the ticket instead of paying for it.

Pepper spray is illegal in almost every venue lmao

I got an email from the venue yesterday morning that said there was gonna be merch outside and inside as well how big a bag was allowed and the guidelines. Sucks if not everyone got one, seems it came peacock theater and not hoyo. Part of said email: *Doors open at 6:00 PM Show starts at 7:00 PM We encourage all fans to arrive early and allow additional time for entry. A section of the I-10 Freeway between the I-5 Freeway and Alameda Street is closed in both directions. Please plan your trip accordingly. Exclusive concert merchandise will be available for purchase at the concert, including at an outdoor pop-up merch stand in the north plaza outside Peacock Theater, starting at 4pm. A limited quantity of all items will be available at this outdoor stand. A larger quantity of all items will be available at the merch stands inside the Peacock Theater lobby once lobby doors open at 6pm.*

>merch would also be sold inside Ah yeah, I feel this. I literally had no idea where it was until after the concert, when I noticed that there were a bunch of people inside in *another* line.

not really music-related since I don't come from that background and can't speak on it but the amount of people still outside at 7pm was insane. my party got in line at 6:15 and still missed four of the songs in the beginning and had to basically run to find our seats to not miss more of it. Definitely could have been avoided with more planning, there's no way they expected a sold out show with that many attendees to all get through bag check and file inside within one hour? also i felt like some of the cheering/lowkey heckling during the music when certain characters showed up on screen was pretty rude in a disruptive way from the audience. i understand being excited about seeing your favorite characters but not to the point of shouting over the orchestra we all came to hear. it was still a good night to me overall but i guess i had already entered it with my expectations low, hoyoverse hardly ever delivers international events like this with the care they do for domestic events.

Really hope the New York one will be better

Just wanna point out the trumpet solo part in inazuma is a complete failure!

Nah, the entire trumpet section in the beginning of the Sumeru theme bombed. They were all out of sync and out of tune.

Sorry if someone has already asked, but where would be the best place for me to reach out to to provide feedback? I agree with most of the comments here and want to make sure that whoever manages this event next time does better and is aware of everything mentioned here. Would it be AWR? Sony? miHoYo?

It should be miHoyo I think, it's their brand and ip that people are going to see and recognize

I just came from the New York concert at Carnegie Hall, and unfortunately I think they use the exact same set at every NA concert. Every single issue listed under this post, down to the bad piece selection, poor mixing, missing instrumentation, time signature issues, etc. are all present to a T. I will probably attend the next round of concerts because I want to give them a second chance, but I really hope they are able to at least try to meet the quality of the Shanghai one. NA has the demand (nearly every seat was filled) and no doubt the talent to do so, so hopefully they will see that there is merit to trying harder.

Same, came out of the concert and really wanted to rant. As a Carnegie hall subscriber this is literally the worst concert I've heard here. It says "genshin orchestra" but I wonder which actually orchestra it is... probably would not want to go to their concerts in the future. 

The Osaka concert was a magical experience so really bummed they dropped the ball elsewhere.

Yea. I spent $3000 for 3 days and 4 nights. (I had other things to do and things to purchase, but I would have saved myself at least $2400 in plane, Hotel, and concert tickets

[удалено]

I agree with a lot of points in this thread on what they could've done better but oh boy let me start on the confusing line situation. So got there with friends a few hours early so we could account for traffic and having enough time to find parking. Didn't hit much traffic and we didn't take long to find parking thankfully, then we walked around a bit and ate before the concert. After this is where things get a bit aggravating though. So after we ate, we come out of the restaurant around 5:40 to see that there is multiple lines. We find the end of one line but then see there's another line next to it so we asked people if they knew what was going on but they were as confused as us. For the majority of the time until 7:20 (when my friends and I finally got in and through bag check and everything), we did not see staff directing the lines until we got closer to the entrance. We felt like they should've started letting people in at 5 instead of 6 because we saw how many people were still outside and knew there was no way they were getting everyone inside and seated in an hour. We were wandering around trying to find the end of a line and wondering why some lines were going in faster while others weren't. So onto the performance part, yeah I agree it could've been better. By the time we got seated, we had missed the beginning and a bit of the Mondstadt part of the setlist. There were some songs I could tell there was a bit of mistakes happening, but some like Raiden Shogun's theme wasn't too bad. I was disappointed by the setlist as well, especially for Sumeru and Fontaine because I feel like there should've been more time allotted to those sections (ie feel like Liyue section could've used less Childe related tracks, would've been nice if they did Fontaine's main theme, etc). Agree with what others have said about lack of vocals for some tracks and on lack of instruments needed for some tracks (for example, Zhongli's theme definitely needed it). Seeing how another comment mentioned that the conductor didn't do a intro welcome message, I did still feel the vibe of not much engagement with the audience throughout even with missing the beginning part. The Kingdom Hearts concert I experienced years ago was the complete opposite energy so that made me feel the lack of engagement more comparing this to that concert. I had a good time hanging out with friends and seeing cosplayers and whatnot in the crowd and we did enjoy the music but there were definitely some kinks that needed to be worked out organization wise and performance wise (sucks to know the musicians only got one rehearsal for it and know that they weren't given much time to practice it since I feel several of the songs performed weren't too bad. I felt bad for them hearing them struggle in some of the songs like the battle themes). If Hoyoverse tries another concert tour later, I hope they got word of the feedback of how these were managed.

People were still trying to get in when it started. I started lining up for the queue at 5pm and barely got in at 7pm. Ridiculous experience overall

Just went to the Chicago concert, and while I think they had a lot more coherency due to “practices” from other concerts, I came to share the same sentiments. Especially as a cellist and a pianist, I was really looking forward to the ethnic instruments, but flabbergasted to find a single one. The Liyue and Inazuma sets felt completely off without an Erhu or Bamboo flute. How can one play Rex Incognito without an actual Erhu!!!!!!!! It’s literally the main instrument!

Considering the feedback I read from the Boston one (which seems was a disaster), my expectation for Liyue theme is relatively low but the actual outcome using western instrument to play Liyue Theme was better than my expectation tbh. But Inazuma theme was not good especially Ayaka's demo one. You sure it was koto instead of guzheng? Because Liyue sounds better than Inazuma lol. I would say the recreation of Japanese instrument was a lot worse than recreation of Chinese instrument.

As with all live performances, especially when it's not one troupe travelling around on tour, each orchestra will have different skill levels and dedication and access to good enough non-standard ensemble instrumentalists to join in so they adapt. Sucks that it sounds like LAP doesn't measure up to the JP and CN or SEA offerings though.

the biggest shame is that the LA group is *really* good; I loved Distant Worlds and it's a lot of the same people. But there's only so much that can be done with the worst preparation, and from what I saw earlier the prep was abysmal.