Kaylie Wang is an English freshman and Mustang News opinion columnist. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
I was absolutely thrilled, as were many other students, when I first heard about the free A Boogie Wit da Hoodie concert: great music, it’s on campus and I won’t have to pay a dime.
Ultimately, the lack of organization really took away from the concert’s enjoyment and even caused many ticket owners to miss out on the experience.
To start off, at least students were given advance notice of the concert and ticket registration, unlike the St. Fratty’s Day Galantis and Zhu concert. ASI made the announcement on their Instagram on May 5.
Still, there was confusion about where to get the tickets. ASI’s website for the concert previously mentioned that the link to register for tickets would be available at noon on Mar. 8. I, like many other students, thought they meant that the tickets would be available on the ASI page, but then the website crashed minutes before tickets went on sale.
I was one of the lucky individuals who checked the ASI’s Instagram story, where they posted a link. By 12:02 p.m., my ticket was confirmed. However, tickets sold out within minutes like the St. Fratty’s Day concert, because at 12:05 p.m., my friends received a message on the Cal Poly Tickets Evenue saying “Seats not found.” ASI officially posted that tickets were sold out at 12:11 p.m.
Many students were disappointed that their friends didn’t get tickets. My roommates and friends didn’t get tickets, so I went to the concert alone. I was initially so worried about going alone, but it ended up being no big deal because I ran into more friends at the concert.
Right before the concert, ASI staff went around telling people already waiting in line that wallets were prohibited. The staff apparently just learned about this, and it was not on the ASI website’s list of unauthorized items sent to students beforehand. Event staff told students they would be denied entrance and have to leave the line if they had wallets on them.
ASI’s website listed bags like purses and backpacks, but not wallets. Students either had to quickly run home or to their cars to store their wallets, or rent a locker in the Rec Center for $25.
ASI needs to better prepare students and staff for their events by communicating beforehand. There should have been prior notice so students could plan ways to carry their phone and ID (and possibly also house keys) without a wallet.
Doors didn’t open until 7 p.m., although it was scheduled to open at 6:30 p.m. At 7:20pm, the student DJ Laurs World went onstage. It seemed that the concert had gotten itself back on schedule.
I had been enjoying standing in the floor space until around 8 p.m., when the floor felt dangerously crowded as students packed into the space. Many students wanted to get closer to the stage, so there was sudden pushing. It got to the point that I found myself squished between everyone around me without room to even extend my arms.
As people pushed into the crowd to get closer, everyone was so tightly packed that we would all just fall in one direction. Many students fell on each other or to the ground. After a certain point, it became difficult to move, even to escape the pit.
I was seriously concerned that a student would get injured from the pushing or faint from exhaustion. The floor became so cramped that it made me nervous, so I made my way to the outskirts and eventually up to the bleachers.
Thankfully, staff recognized these safety concerns and went onstage at 8:30 p.m., telling students to move out of the floor and onto the bleachers to reduce the crowded mosh pit. They turned all the lights on at 8:34 p.m., which then received lots of boo’s and middle fingers from students in the crowd.
Multiple staff members and even DJ Laurs World came onstage to urge more students to move up to the bleachers so they could continue the concert. They repeatedly threatened to cancel the show and send everyone home until the floor became less congested.
Outside, it was also chaos. The staff informed those waiting in line that students were sneaking in by using codes that had already been scanned, so there were too many people inside. They closed the doors on a large group of students at 8:40 p.m., which was on time with their schedule, but these students had tickets. Police officers outside the venue threatened students that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave.
After rushing to snag a ticket (or buying a ticket off someone else), looking forward to the concert, getting ready, then wasting time in line, I would be furious to hear that I can’t even go in.
This is incredibly unfair for students who actually got their own ticket. To prevent this from happening in the future, ASI needs to adopt a system that only allows the QR codes to be scanned once, preventing double-scanning and extra people from entering. It may also help to tie it to a specific student’s name, so event staff can verify with their Poly Card.
It wasn’t until 8:49 p.m. that the lights were turned on inside, and DJ Cranberry started playing songs that hyped up the crowd. It was annoying and awkward for the lights to be turned on once the concert had already started, but the visibility did help students find their way to the bleachers safely. The floor gradually became less crowded.
I am grateful that the staff paused the concert to prevent any students from being seriously harmed. I also noticed staff passing out water bottles around 9:30 p.m.
Once the crowd chaos calmed down, I had a really fun time. The music from the DJs and A Boogie were great, and there was constantly high energy in the crowd, which kept me going.
It’s not every day that I can go from attending classes and writing an essay to getting dressed up and dancing at a full-blown concert minutes away from my dorm. This experience was once-in-a-lifetime, and I’m grateful for it.
I’m disappointed that not every student can experience these free events. But at the same time, it felt like there were way too many people at the venue.
The concert was held in the Cal Poly Recreation Center Main Gym (Bldg. 43), which is considered a space large enough for up to 3,500 students. Many higher bleachers were completely empty, so the space could really have held more people if there was more crowd control preventing all incoming students from joining the pit.
I would love to have seen the space taken advantage of. Staff could have organized students into the bleachers once the floor space had reached capacity.
It also felt ironic that there were such excessive security measures taken on what students were allowed to bring into the concert, with even wallets prohibited, with the explanation that it could be used as projectiles. The lack of crowd control to efficiently fit all the students in the venue ultimately became dangerous and what security should have focused on patrolling.
In the future, I am hopeful there will be more free concerts or performances so that more students can enjoy these experiences. However, there is clearly room for improvement. I hope that the next time we have to register for an event, ticket holders won’t worry that their ticket is meaningless, and are actually guaranteed entry.
I also want students and event staff to work better together to improve crowd control. Rather than clearing people out of the pit once it became too busy, better control over where students go would allow staff to stay in control and prevent too many people from entering the pit. This also requires students to be held responsible to create a safe environment for fun events.
Clearly the ticket system is also not working if it allows for double-scanning, so it’s clear we need a better system especially in the wake of St. Fratty’s ticket complications.
For example, USC uses a platform called EngageSC, which requires students to sign in before they can register for tickets. Every student receives a QR code associated with their ID, and they are non-transferable. The concerts committee received digital scan counts of how many people are at the venue for crowd control. These are strategies I hope Cal Poly can implement in the future.
With better communication about what items are allowed inside, a better ticket system that prevents non-ticket holders from entering and improved crowd control, this concert would have been an all-around enjoyable experience. I look forward to the day we can just look back at it as a messy event that had fun moments, but ultimately led to bigger and better concerts.
