Concerts and Crowd Control

So as you have probably noticed, and a few have pointed out, my blog posts have been coming less and less frequently. My apologies to those of you who like to keep tabs on my life and a big "You're welcome!" to those of you who don't, but in the spirit of sporadically keeping one fourth of you content, one fourth of you annoyed and affecting half of you in no way whatsoever (estimates only), I've decided to add another small chapter to my mini Beijing chronicle.

The story begins last Friday, June 15th when I was asked to help out as a "client interface" for the Samsung Olympic sponsorship announcement concert which was to take place the next day. While "client interfacing" certainly sounds like an important role, it ends up involving a whole lot of sitting-around-and-doing-nothing when the client (who in this case was actually a PR firm, and not Samsung itself) is so busy with his/her own work that he/she doesn't really care about talking to other people. So I spend the most of the day sitting around due to the busyness of my clients, and was only called in when crisis struck and people needed to recharge their phone or needed to get a package from one side of Beijing to the other side in less than 30 minutes (which, I must note, is an impossible feat considering the density of traffic in Beijing - I made it in 45). So anywhoo, Friday was a pretty uneventful day, until the stars came.

By stars, I'm referring to Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong pop singers (6 total). Friday was just a warm-up and "test out the microphones" day, but it was pretty cool to sit right up front with about 50 of my co-workers in a park that was made to seat 6,000 plus people while we got a private show from some of the big name pop stars from the east. However, after two of the six had practiced, crowds began to form just outside of the park, so we had to disperse and keep these fans (or just people with nothing better to do) from trying to come in to get a closer look. There weren't really any issues. Nobody got out of control, but when the Korean boy-band (I think the lead singer's name was Konta) hit the stage, there was a bit of excitement amongst the Chinese teenie boppers. Nothing too crazy, but it was kind of funny to see the line of taxis waiting for his band to leave the venue so that they could follow him back to his hotel. Funnier still was listening to my co-worker Brian relay to me the planning of Konta's escape route that he was hearing via walkie talkie. I don't know how it turned out, but Konta did turn up the next day for his performance safe and sound.

Saturday was the actual day of the event. The morning involved a lot of nothing, and the afternoon was filled with me following around the client with whom I was interfacing in order to make sure that everything was perfect and set for the event, which was to open at 5:30 and begin at 6:45.

The beginning of the event went off without a hitch. The crowds were relatively orderly, and we only had to do a little bit of work trying to make people sit where they were supposed to sit (seating was arranged based on how soon people arrived, best seats going first - colored wristbands were given to people in order to designate the sections where they were supposed to be, within sections, general seating was the rule). It was almost comical how many people in the red section (the best seats) magically seemed to "lose" their wristbands. Here is an example of the generic conversation that I must have had 10 times:

Me: "Can I see your wristband"
Person A: "I lost my wrist band"
Me: "Oh, I'm sorry, but you have to have a red wristband to sit in this area"
Person A: "My wristband was red; I lost it"
Person A's Friend: "Yeah, she (95% of them were female) lost it"
Me: "I'm sorry to hear that. If that's the case, you have to go back up front and get a new one"
Person A (excited): "Oh, so I can tell them that I lost my red band and they'll give me a new one?"
Me: "No, they will give you whatever color they are giving out now. If you wanted to sit here, you shouldn't have lost your red wrist band in the first place."
Person A (angry): "But I HAD a red one before! Why can't they give me a new one!?"
Me: "We are all out of red ones. If you don't have a wristband at all, I'll have to ask you to leave. Could you please go get a new one because I don't want you to have to leave . . ."
Person A (throws a small hissy fit and leaves, only to come back to the same seat 5 minutes later as I watch her . . . I walk back, and the conversation begins anew and then I escort her to get a new wristband after seating people wearing red wristbands in her - and her other friends' who also lost their wristbands - seats).

Wow, that was fun. My other favorite excuses for being in the wrong section (and my immediate thoughts after hearing the comments in italics):
"I'm a Journalist" (Then why are you stuck with a wristband while all of the other journalists get VIP seating?)
"I'm a photographer" (Then why do you not have a big sign on your back that says "PHOTOGRAPHER" like the other photographers?)
"My friend is meeting me here . . . Just let me call her. When she comes, I'll go back to my section" (Ummmm . . . DUH! You have a cell phone! Call or text your friend and tell her to meet you in your section next to the big flag that is the same color as your wristband!)

Ok, that's enough ranting about the silly, unoriginal excuses that I heard and the unnecessary amount of effort that was required in order to convince people that they were not, in fact, journalists, photographers, or more important than everybody else. On to the concert . . .

It was very cool! . . . until Konta came on stage. At which point about 1,000 Chinese girls (and a few of the girls' boyfriends . . . WEIRD!?!?!) rushed the stage. Security was completely unprepared, so I had to play blocker as the girls tried to rush past (good thing Chinese girls are very small). A couple of my co-workers had to do the same thing. One got a black eye from a girl punching him in the face; one got socked in the stomach; I just had my "Event Staff" badge ripped off. Luckily my co-worker picked it up before somebody ran off with it. Otherwise I would have been stuck in the red section without identification or a wristband (EEEK!). Eventually security formed a line and the girls couldn't get through. Whew!

Konta did his things while girls screamed, took pictures and cried (it reminded me of those videos of girls at Beatles concerts that I've seen). Then he left the stage and the crazed fans bolted for the exit, presumably hoping to hop in a taxi and wait for him to leave like the day before. Poor girls . . . so naive . . . I didn't have the time (because of their hurry to sprint to the cars) or the heart to tell them that he had an encore performance at the very end of the show.

The rest of the performance was rather uneventful as far as storming the stage goes. "Photographers" and "journalists" came and went, but didn't put up much fuss when I politely asked them to return to their seats. The singers were cool to watch, especially in the encore performance when all six stars returned to sing "One World, One Dream" the 2008 Olympic theme song.

And that was that! After, I had a quick celebratory beer with one of my co-workers who was working F&B (food and beverage), and went out for a night of KTV. Yeehaw!