Venue ill-prepared for large crowd
February 8, 2010
If you were one of the many who stood outside for more than an hour in the elbow-to-elbow crowd and 20-degree temperatures Saturday night outside Buster’s, then you will understand where I am coming from.
I arrived at Buster’s to find what looked to be hundreds of people gathered outside the entry door around 10 p.m., wondering what could possibly be causing the giant clump of people.
I stood outside for half an hour with my friends surrounded by hate chants toward Buster’s, “let us in” chants and of course, the classic C-A-T-S chant. As each minute passed without an explanation of why I was stuck out in the cold for so long, my anger escalated higher and higher.
Rumors spread through the crowd that people had rushed the door and ran in without showing their ID, however the only official explanation provided was from the man standing in front of the door telling us to form a better line if we ever wanted to get inside.
Soon police were called, taking away people in handcuffs. Eventually the paddywagon, the ultimate crowd controller, arrived for backup.
I understand Buster’s did not want to open the doors for fear of underage people running in without their IDs or tickets being checked. What made me mad was the fact that they thought one person standing in front of a hundred-person crowd could have both the power and voice to solve the problem.
If Buster’s wanted people to listen and form a more-organized line of people, they should have: a) let people know what the problem was sooner and, b) instructed on a microphone that people needing to use will call should form one line while people who had tickets should form another.
Instead, what management did was send a few annoyed Buster’s workers outside to try and yell over the screaming crowds. And there’s no way three people’s voices can overpower a crowd of angry and intoxicated college students.
If you were one of the people who paid at least $20 to see the show but left in frustration, you are probably the angriest of them all. Lets face it, in college $20 means a lot.
If Buster’s expects to host concerts of this size in the future, and expects people to trust they’ll get to see who they paid for, then Buster’s needs to come up with a different system. Otherwise this college town may take its business elsewhere.
