Crowds

[ateolf]

Mary Beth and I tried to go to this Asian night market event up at Crosstown yesterday afternoon/evening, but as we approached driving down the street, we noticed all these people walking for blocks towards the building (never that much foot traffic over there!) and though I'd never been to an event at Crosstown where the parking garage was full, all the side streets were jam-packed with parked cars (and we were behind a long slow-moving line of cars driving there). So yeah, we could tell there were going to be way too many people and it was going to be a hassle so we ended up skipping it and kept on driving. This morning I checked the fb event page and over eleven thousand people responded (definitely doesn't mean that many people were actually there but STILL, it does show a FUCKING LOT of people were there, definitely thousands) and people were commenting on the event and complaining about how it was crowded well beyond the venue's capacity and lines for food were so long many people ended up not able to get any and some were complaining of how poorly organized it is, but I can tell it was way more people than anyone actually expected to show up so I can sympathize from the organizers' perspective. I imagine if they do it again then it'll be at a bigger venue or at least set up to better accommodate the crowds or something. We were shocked when we saw how many people were there from just driving by (and couldn't even get a look at the actual crowd inside the building or in the back, which is where I think the main event was) so I can't even imagine what it was like actually being in its midst. Later at night I went to the Lamplighter for a show. First it was Out of Neptune which is a new project with Chuck (one of the owners of the Lamp) playing synths and Haley playing flute. They were really good, sometimes abstract, sometimes kinda jazz-funk-y. Next it was General Labor and they were real good. They had some power issues after the first song. Then after a few attempts they split what was plugged into the same strip and had some of it running from an extension to the other wall and then it went fine. Last was a touring band called Pearl Earl. Some of their stuff was alright but they were a bit classic rock for my taste. This show was the opposite of the Asian market as there were very few people there (I mean, I've been to shows with fewer but it was pretty sparse).