It was held under the biggest tent in town, and it was without doubt the most poorly coordinated event I’ve ever attended. Don’t get me wrong, Hank was great and so was Palin, but beyond that it it was frustrating for most.
3:40 PM – I was one of the few that were lucky enough to get into a suite. I went in down a back hallway, up an elevator and in minutes we were there. We were scanned by three very Amazonian-type Secret Service babes, and even through they had to go through my laptop case, someone’s purse, empty your pockets, etc, it only took a few minutes to get all four of us inside. As we went down the hallway there were black curtains erected for what I assume was crowd control, until I saw a Secret Service agent peering out from behind them.
4:25 PM – After watching from the suite for about 45 minutes, we were amazed that only a few hundred people had entered the arena.
We noticed the VIP area was basically a wide open space on the main floor surrounded by gates. It had no chairs, and was on top of the ice used by the Komets. I immediately started to get worried about an elderly couple I had obtained 2 VIP tickets for. How were they going to stand on that cold floor for upwards of 4 hours? One of them is handicapped, how were they going to handle that?
5:45 PM – I receive a phone call from another person who was standing on the floor and after an hour, they were miserable due to the cold from the ice. We decide to go down and see what the reason for the delay was. Going back down the hallway we find a woman in a wheelchair waiting to get on an elevator. She said she had been there 10 minutes. I checked, and apparently the Secret Service had disabled all elevators. We take her to three attendants down the hall and explain her plight; they’re all clueless. One attendant decides to check it out and we leave her in his hands.
5:51 PM – We’re still on the suite level and look out the window and see they’ve somehow moved the line which had been winding it’s way back and forth in front of the building. It now appears to snake from the middle of the parking lot and takes everyone in a circle and then out to Wizards (Memorial) Stadium then back through the parking lot to the coliseum. Another friend calls me from outside wanting to know what the hell was going on inside. He’s miserably cold, and not too happy.
6:02 PM – We make it to the main interior entrance to the arena. They have six metal detectors & scanner stations setup. I start doing the math. About 2 minutes per person times six to get them through the door. So every couple of minutes around a dozen or so are entering. There had to be 7-8,000 people still outside. I’ve seen cattle farms move cows to slaughter with greater efficiency. So much for using the TSA.
We notice there’s no way to get down the stairs to the main floor. Combine that with all of the elevators being disabled and no one manning them. Had there been a reason to evacuate the arena it would have been a disaster in the making. We decide to find another way down decide to see if maybe the elevator’s working again.
6:15 PM (est) – We’re back in the hallway that runs between the suites and the elevator is still disabled. We encounter a coliseum worker standing in the empty hallway. We explain that we want to go to the main floor. My friend says he’d really like to go outside and have a smoke. The coliseum worker, in a very rude tone states, “you can’t go down, you can’t get outside, if you do, the Secret Service won’t let you back in”. I tell him, “bullsh%t, if we wanted to go outside, how could they stop us”? The diminutive coliseum worker marches off in a huff.
6:30 PM – Back in the suite, the arena appears to be less than half full. Hank Jr. rolls out shortly after and the crowd loves him. My friend tells another suite occupant about my encounter with Randy Brown. WTF? I had no idea is was Randy Brown, and what was he doing in the empty hallway? Why wasn’t he down in the midst of the infernal pandemonium below?
7:10 PM (est) – Murray Clark, IRC Chairman starts to speak, followed by Mike Pence, Mark Souder and Becky Skillman. By the time Sarah Palin takes the stage the arena is about 3/4 of capacity.
7:20 PM – I get yet another call from someone outside. People are saying the hell with it and going home.
By the time Palin got into the meat of her speech the arena appeared full. I didn’t want to be in the midst of the next cluster-fsck, so I left about 20 minutes into her speech.
I had been told Palin was going to Coney Island, and I could have been pre-positioned there but I was tired and done for the day. I’m told she did make an appearance at Coney Island. I now wish I would have went. I bet crowd control there would have been quite different.
AWB
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I have never seen such a mess ever! I arrived at two, parked in the front row, ate my salad I had picked up for lunch, and read my book I had brought along and watched the crowd line up from the comfort of my car. At about 3:45 as the line was winding back from Parnell towards the front of the coliseum I decided to get in line.
When the doors opened a little after 4 all hell broke loose. As I watched everyone head for the doors I decided I was no fool and I also broke line and went for a door. By 4:15 I was in the lobby almost to the stairs shoulder to shoulder.
At 5 I was up the stairs….and the metal detector, after I went thru it I had to be scanned by the wand by another security guy because my buttons on my jacket set it off. Once I got thru all of that it was a virtual ghost town. I wandered thru the halls at my leisure, stopped and got a water without waiting in line and journiedd on in to find a seat. I ended up sitting right beside the VIP section that was seated in the front row to the immediate left of the stage. I watched all the VIPs come and go right in front of me. I felt really bad about the people still in line, it was all such a mess, it honestly looked as if at the beginning when they opened the doors it had the makings of a stampede.
AWB texted me when he decided to split and I thought, that is a darned good idea, so I headed on out also. I tuned Sarah in on WOWO and cruised right out of the parking lot and on home. I can only imagine what kind of mess it was getting out of that place after the rally.
All in all, I am oh so glad I went and I think I got some really good pictures that I will post on my blog a little later today.
I was with a group of 8 people waiting in line outside for about 2 hours. We were surprised by how far back we were, we were not surprised, however, about how slow the line moved once the doors opened.
When you have to work with metal detectors and the Secret Service you should expect it to be slow going. We were commenting that they should have opened the doors earlier to get people in the arena by the time the show was supposed to start.
I can’t believe how much people complain these days. We live in an age of hightened security. If you go to a political rally where a candidate for Vice President is speaking, you should expect to wait awhile in line.
I would also like to mention that leaving the Coliseum was the easiest I could remember. I have been to quite a few Komets games and this was by far the easiest exit I can remember.
I stayed for the entire rally.
I am the friend that was with AWB that night. Palin was amazing. Hank Jr was amazing. The way the coliseum handled things was horrible. Randy Brown needs to be replaced. He is rude to the patrons. He is rude to the suite owners. He is rude to his employees. Stop passing the buck Randy and fix the problems. All he does is walk around in his high dollar suits and try to look important. People that know him laugh at him. He is a joke. Goodbye Randy.