Celine concert 'a mess'
2008-02-26 11:18
Dear Editor,
I helped a friend who had been sub-contracted as a supplier for the Celine Dion concert, and since I have 10 years in eventing experience, I thought that I would shed a little more light on the story.
The bad traffic was just the tip of the iceberg on Saturday. The actual management of the event and set-up inside was even worse! To give you an idea of quite how bad it was, for the week leading up to the concert, no-one working on site could get hold of the event team. They didn't answer their phones and their voice mails were full!
In point form some of the issues were:
1. No signage
2. No info-centre - one lady lost her kids and there was no way of getting them called for.
3. No lighting - inside or in the parking areas
4. No crowd barriers outside, so the queuing system was a mess. People were taken to hospital as a result of being trampled
5. Limited security who weren't properly briefed
6. Hay bales as barriers between the very expensive and normal tickets but there was no way of monitoring who was going in or out of the areas
7. No directional signage within the venue
8. No toilets outside where some people spent up to seven hours queuing
9. Taking products that suppliers had sold them and then marking them up by 200% before selling them to the public
10. Not making it clear that people couldn't enter with picnic chairs etc and then confiscating them on arrival
I can honestly say that I have never seen people as angry as they were on Saturday. Celine was brilliant, but people's experiences were tainted by what had happened to them by the time she came on stage.
One thing that the organisers did do well was to have no branding so no one could hold them responsible - I think that they need to be named and shamed.
Kusasa should not be given contracts of that nature if they can't handle them!
Witness,
Cape Town
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