Fans angry at two hour wait to see Take That

Jun 9 2009 by Sara Nichol, The Journal

THOUSANDS of Take That fans who flocked to the Stadium of Light over the weekend were faced with two-hour queues into the ground, “bad” crowd management and jam-packed Metros.

More than 10,000 passengers swamped the Metro trains on Friday and Saturday night, causing journeys from Newcastle to Sunderland to take nearly two hours.

As fans returned home after the concert, some were trying to avoid queues by walking to St Peters Station, meaning the Metro carriages were already full by the time they pulled up at the Stadium of Light station.

Meanwhile, some excited fans were also forced to wait for two hours to get into the stadium – meaning some missed one of the support acts.

Avid fan Katherine Watson said: “After hearing horror stories from friends who had been on the Friday night, we were more than ready for jam-packed Metros to and from the event and a bit of a wait to get into the stadium itself.

“But nothing prepared us for a one hour 45 minute queue when we arrived at the stadium at 5.45pm.

“It was badly organised, stewards were standing around in groups of two’s and three’s and making no attempt to manage the crowd.

“The growing frustration and disappointment was evident in everyone you spoke to. We asked several stewards what the hold up was only to be told that everyone should have arrived earlier.

We missed the first support act, Gary Go and only managed to get into the stadium to hear three songs from The Saturdays. We were a group of nine and as you can imagine, very disappointed to have paid almost £50 a ticket and then not get to hear the support bands.

“The biggest problem was that the general admissions were only being made through one area and this was creating a bottle-neck as only a handful of stewards were available to check tickets before passing us onto another steward who then had to fit a wristband.”