‘A nightmare’: Fan describes leaving concert at Toronto’s new Rogers Stadium | CBC News
Fans who attended the inaugural concert at Toronto’s new Rogers Stadium on Sunday night are calling for better crowd control after some say it took up to two hours to exit the venue.
With performances set to take place throughout the summer at the 50,000-capacity open-air venue in north Toronto, concertgoers say the stadium needs a different strategy to manage the throngs of people coming in and out of shows.
Shannon Spencer, who attended a concert by the K-pop group Stray Kids on Sunday evening, said the crowd came to a standstill at the end of the night as stadium staff were letting people out “in batches” and funnelling them towards nearby Downsview Park station.
With limited parking on site, fans were encouraged to take public transit, with rides from the stadium offered for free from Downsview Park TTC and GO Transit stations.
But even with extra trains departing after the concert, Spencer said the stations were congested and ill-equipped to have thousands of people passing through at once.
Others voiced complaints on social media about long wait times leaving the stadium and hours-long journeys to catch a train, bus or Uber after the concert.
It took Autumn Halvorsen more than an hour to get out of the stadium after Sunday’s concert. Then she had to walk another 20 minutes to a spot where she could catch an Uber as drivers kept cancelling rides, which she believes is because the venue can’t be accessed easily by car, she said.
“It was just kind of a nightmare,” she said.
A seasonal 50,000 person venue is coming to Toronto’s Downsview Park, Live Nation announced Thursday morning. Rogers Stadium is expected to open next summer. CBC’s Shawn Jeffords has the details.
In a statement to CBC News, Live Nation said it is “already making adjustments based on fan and community feedback and will continue to refine our operations to ensure a positive and safe experience for everyone at Rogers Stadium and in our neighbouring community this summer – working closely with city officials, the TTC and Metrolinx, emergency services, and our community partners along the way.”
It also called Sunday’s opening concert “a landmark moment for live music in Toronto.”
‘We want this to be a teaching moment’: councillor
James Pasternak, city councillor whose ward includes the Downsview area where the stadium is located, said he heard complaints of a “surge of crowds” leaving the stadium at the end of the concert, as well as long lineups for security and bathrooms and limited access to water.
There were also concerns over high noise levels from residents close to the stadium, the councillor said.
Pasternak said he’s meeting with Northcrest Developments, which owns the land, and Live Nation Canada, the venue’s operator, on Wednesday morning to discuss possible solutions.
“We want this to be a teaching moment where we can fix some of the problems,” Pasternak said.
Spencer said she heard of people standing in line for over an hour to fill their water bottles at the free water refill stations, and said she worried it could put people at risk in hot weather.
She said she alerted medical staff three times as people around her were fainting when trying to leave the stadium.
‘A trade off’
When Spencer returns to Rogers Stadium next week to see the British rock band Coldplay perform, she plans to leave the concert at least 20 minutes early to beat the crowds rushing out of the venue, she said.
“It’s quite annoying because I paid a lot of money to see the whole show, but I have to do a trade off: do I want to get stuck in this situation again, or do I ensure I get home at a good time and be safe?” she said.
While Halvorsen was able to fill her water bottle inside the stadium, the water that poured into her bottle was warm, she said. Ultimately, she decided to pay $7 for a cold water bottle from one of the stadium vendors, she said.
Halvorsen, who drove seven hours from Michigan to attend the concert, said she would not return to Rogers Stadium — a sentiment she said was shared by some of the others at the show.
“One of the girls next to us in that huge crowd leaving was selling her tickets to a concert that she had at that same stadium because she didn’t want to go back,” Halvorsen said.
