Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The Drought Tour

Oh hello there!

So, a lot has happened since I have stopped attending school! I got a day job, dyed my hair black (it was basically black already), and attended two concerts at the Marquee!

The first of these two was the Arizona show of the five-stop, Drought Tour, headlining The Neighbourhood. Doors opened at 6:30 to let the seemingly infinitely growing line of edgy-looking youths into the venue. I arrived an hour before doors opened and still found myself waiting at the back of the line. Security populated the parking lot and the front entrance. The venue, that has a capacity of 2,500, held between 1,200 and 1,400 people on the night of The Neighbourhood concert. Though this is far from a sold out show, the Marquee plays lots local bands and often sees events with much smalls attendee numbers (look for my upcoming post about my second research concert at Marquee, Guster). When the doors of the venue finally opened, males and females were divided into two lines to be patted down. Per usual, the female line was substantially longer than the male line, and as a result not only were groups split us, but also, females who had been waiting substantially longer than males were pushed behind them in their entry into the venue. Post-concert I observed the mass number of selfie sticks, sharpies, and unopened gum that had been confiscated during pat down. Now, I feel it’s important to mention why entering the venue sooner rather than later is so desirable; the people that attend concerts for the particular musician or the actual concert experience prefer to be as close to stage as possible. The closer to the stage, the easier it is for the individual to become involved in the show. It is in fact this region of the crowd that is relevant to the research. There were only six crowd surfers over the course of the night and all were removed by security once they reached the barricade. After a rush to the stage and an hour and a half of being casually pressed against strangers, the first opening

The show began at 8:00 p.m. and started with a band called Casinos. From a musical standpoint, the were absolutely atrocious. Most of the attendees were confused by the performance and didn't show notable enthusiasm. The second opener was better received but drew an equally unimpressive amount of enthusiasm. It was only when The Neighbourhood came on at 9:30 that the crowd began to fall into a frenzy. As soon as the band took the stage, the middle of the crowd rushed forward, smashing those against the barricade. The biggest issue that I observed with operation of the venue was the disconnect of the understanding between the security guards and the attendees; the individuals in the front of the crowd misunderstood the role of the security officers to be more than it actually was. Security is expected to maintain the safety of the attendees and remove/ handle any disruptions or individuals in need of medical assistance from the crowd. People around me, generally the younger fans, were requesting security to bring them water, and I even observed at one point a group of younger girls calling an officer over simply to voice complaints about their discomfort as a part of crowd. And once I observed this, I began to notice it happening all around me. Attendees would feign serious need of security attention and hail the officer over without legitimate purpose. Now I'm not saying that these fifteen year-olds had the intent of distracting security from their job, but rather they didn't have a realistic understanding of their role. This behavior and lack of prior knowledge of venue protocol is interesting and will likely be a factor I consider in my analysis of the causes of aggression in the crowd.

This was only the first of many concerts (the next one is Guster) I will be attending and I look forward to reporting my experiences to come.

Until next time,
Sabrina

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