Who failed Drake‘s fans?
Tuesday I did my workout and was exhausted, so I strolled down towards the water for a lil’ “Free Time” around 5:15pm. As I approached the South Street Seaport, I noticed it was quite lively and busier than I remember. When I asked what was going on, someone said Drake is doing a Free concert.
‘Kewl” I said, thinking that I had strolled into the right place. I was oh so wrong.
As I ate my seafood dinner in a restaurant closer to the water, it got more and more crowded by the minute. Teenagers, toddlers, strollers, adults, skateboarders and even a young “Wall Street” crowd started showing up in their suits. People from all walks of life and countries were gathering at dangerously high levels for a pier. At about 6:15 p.m., I looked out and said to myself, “wait a minute there is no crowd control…I don’t see one police officer or car, although I saw a channel 7 crew there on the way in.”
So I decided to start making my way out. My instincts said, “Ahem…hey Lil Miss Thang it’s time to go,” as I was squeezing my way out. You could feel the anticipation in the crowd building, excited to see their own virally nominated and supported artist Drake.
Even then it was a peaceful crowd, see?
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Although it took 15 minutes to walk from the pier to the street,
It was no easy task maneuvering through that crowd. Even then I still noticed people running towards the pier from everywhere hoping they didn’t miss a second of Drake. But then it went wrong. Somebody assessed the crowd and said “nope… this ain’t gonna happen.” Unfortunately, people were already drinking. To make matters worse, when it seemed as if the show would never start…things began to get crazy. I got out of there just in time before the crowd began to look like this:
Now here are my questions and observations:
1. This show had to be scheduled months in advance, which means permits pulled, police notified etc. So where was the safety concern for this event discussed and who was in that meeting?
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2. Drake sells out stadiums, so who in their right mind thought that just 10,000 people would come to see him perform at a FREE concert?
3. Where was Drakes camp at 3, 4, or 5pm to do a “walk thru?” During a normal walk through, they would prepare his path to the stage. Obviously they didn’t do one, or they would have realized that the quickest and safest path for all would have been from the water (the stage is backed up to it). Duhhhhh?
<img src='http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music/drake/seaport2/Drake10.jpg' alt='' width='400' heig
