It's every General Manager's worst nightmare...
A bomb threat was phoned in to the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, FL last weekend just prior to the Bon Jovi concert scheduled to take place on Saturday night. Police were called to the scene and no one was allowed inside until several hours later when an exhaustive search turned up nothing.
Fans left waiting outside were livid, rightly so. But safety is first priority in these situations. Many people asked why didn't they just cancel the show?
With Bon Jovi already in the venue, and truckloads of equipment already set up, canceling was not an option unless the hoax had turned out to be true. Bon Jovi would have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars regardless of cancellation due to contractual requirements, not to mention the stagehand bill (enormous) and arena staffing expenses. You can't blame the band...nor can you blame the arena. False alarms like this are scary for all involved. After 9/11, the live event business has changed dramatically. We are a target whether we like it or not.
I feel for the fans who had to wait hours to get in to see the show. But it's a dangerous world out there now more than ever, and it's imperative threats like these are taken seriously. I hope they catch the clown who did this though...and send him to jail for a long time.
Read more about this here...
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbbomb0427sbapr27,0,6544731.story
A bomb threat was phoned in to the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, FL last weekend just prior to the Bon Jovi concert scheduled to take place on Saturday night. Police were called to the scene and no one was allowed inside until several hours later when an exhaustive search turned up nothing.
Fans left waiting outside were livid, rightly so. But safety is first priority in these situations. Many people asked why didn't they just cancel the show?
With Bon Jovi already in the venue, and truckloads of equipment already set up, canceling was not an option unless the hoax had turned out to be true. Bon Jovi would have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars regardless of cancellation due to contractual requirements, not to mention the stagehand bill (enormous) and arena staffing expenses. You can't blame the band...nor can you blame the arena. False alarms like this are scary for all involved. After 9/11, the live event business has changed dramatically. We are a target whether we like it or not.
I feel for the fans who had to wait hours to get in to see the show. But it's a dangerous world out there now more than ever, and it's imperative threats like these are taken seriously. I hope they catch the clown who did this though...and send him to jail for a long time.
Read more about this here...
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbbomb0427sbapr27,0,6544731.story
posted by Kevin Barrett at 6:29 AM
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