After impatient fans knocked over a fence at K-Days on Monday as they rushed towards the South Stage to watch rapper Ice Cube perform live, Northlands has made some changes to its site security.
Knowing the concert would be popular, K-Days encouraged fans to come early. It was advice Ice Cube fan Magen Teed took to heart. Teed and her boyfriend found comfortable spots at the picnic benches in the open beer gardens area near the stage a few hours before the concert.
“We were having a couple of beers and eating some ribs and watching the lineup grow from the entrance to the beer gardens, all the way down the side of the fence,” she said on Wednesday.
The South Stage has a capacity of 6,500 people because of its liquor licence, even though the area itself can hold thousands more. On Monday, as the venue neared capacity, Edmontonians stuck in line saw space on the inside of the fence and wanted to get closer to the stage.
“People are getting antsy and they just want to get in. So all of a sudden, you hear this huge roar and the fence is on the ground and this huge crowd of people came stampeding in through the picnic tables,” Teed explained.
She said the crowd of line-jumpers quickly mixed in with everyone else and no security pursued them. Northlands’ director of operations, Ian Sanderson, said that was intentional. He said the goal was to avoid confrontation.
“You’ve got a rush crowd, there’s risk of people being trampled, people being bowled over and hurt. Unfortunately, you have to let it happen. We don’t want people being bowled over and hurt,” he said.
At that point, everyone was allowed in. Northlands estimates 10,000 people ended up taking in the show. 3,500 more than the area is intended for when people are consuming alcohol.
“For safety reasons and because we are now over capacity, our responsibility with our liquor licence was to stop liquor sales,” Sanderson said.
The Ice Cube crowd was by far the largest seen at this year’s K-Days so far.
READ MORE: Edmonton mayor, Northlands CEO weigh in on future of K-Days
“With the surge and everything, yeah it was a really big crowd. It was kind of hard to move,” Teed said.
But other than stampeding through the fence, the fans were well-behaved.
“We had no more security incidents other than normal. No medical issues,” Sanderson explained.
“Nobody got riled up or anything. Everyone was just there to enjoy the music,” Teed added.
After the concert, K-Days made some adjustments to the fencing. They’ve added sandbags on the bottom and additional slip ties and metal joints so the fences cannot be easily separated.
But Sanderson said there’s a lot to consider when it comes to securing the site. Building a fence that’s too large would prevent people from seeing the stage, and building one that’s too strong could jeopardize people’s safety.
“What we have to assess is that if you go too far, if there’s a crush situation, it may not give way. We may not be able to help people quickly that need it,” he said. “With the changes we made today and yesterday, I think we’ve found the right balance with that.”
There are more concerts scheduled this week at the South Stage of K-Days.
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