|
Found this note on facebook by Michael Armstrong from Beb.....Here is his response....
As organizer of Bal en Blanc, I am infuriated reading some of the comments making the rounds, from people who are ignorant of just about everything that staging this type of event requires.
The Palais des Congrès is in reality the only viable option for presenting an event of this scope. As some people have already mentioned, rightly, legal capacity of a hall is not determined solely by its surface area. The number of fire exits and their accessibility, as well as a host of other details, have to be taken into account. Thus, the legal capacity of the central area of Olympic Stadium is in fact only 7,000 to 8,000 people. The two other rooms (Les Grandes hauteurs) can accommodate a larger crowd (we already held the event there, when the Palais was being renovated) but are far from offering a comparable quality of environment.
And what exactly are you trying to prove with this Hells Angels story? Quite frankly, this is really carrying things too far. Bal en Blanc has always made the point of being an inclusive event, open to all without discrimination. How could we change our minds overnight and decide that there are people we do not want to allow in? if a full-patch Hells Angel chooses to buy a ticket and come to the event, we have no choice but to let him in. If it is anyone’s business to deny him access, it is well and truly the police, but rest assured that the Hells Angel in question (if he in fact existed) had no option but to go through security and be frisked under the supervision of police officers. If they did let him in, that was because he was within his rights to come in, like anyone holding a ticket. Some of the comments expressed on forums about the event and its organizers border on defamation and would deserve appropriate legal action if anyone thought to attach the slightest degree of importance to them.
As for the long lineups, I affirm and I repeat, we did not sell a single ticket over the legal capacity previously negotiated with Palais des Congrès and the City of Montreal fire department. The long wait experienced by a number of participants was the result of circumstances beyond our control. We emphasize that no waits were caused by any of the steps we were in a position to control. Ticket checking and the cloakroom service worked smoothly throughout the night and were in no way responsible for the bottlenecks that occurred. Moreover, additional personnel had been assigned to the cloakroom to make the service as efficient as possible. Nevertheless, despite strict respect for the legal capacity allotted for Palais des Congrès, despite the fact that we rented two extra rooms to expand the capacity in question (technical detail: these rooms, located at the end of the Trance room, were accessible during previous editions, but renting them this year formalized access to the emergency exists that they contain), lines failed to move for quite some time owing to a number of factors.
First, the City of Montreal police decided to carry out a much stricter search procedure than in previous years. It was only after our repeated complaints that they agreed to allow security agents to skip certain stages of the frisk, thereby speeding up the flow at the entrance. And although those procedures are the subject each year of detailed negotiations before the event, we remain at the mercy of the level of stringency that the police feel is appropriate once they arrive on the premises.
Secondly, the intervention of the City of Montreal fire department also had the effect of interrupting participants’ gaining admission. Once again, the legal capacity of the leased space is the subject each year of detailed negotiations before the event takes place. When they arrived, fire department representatives judged that, despite the respect they found for the designated capacity, participants were not spread out sufficiently evenly in the leased space. They felt that people were grouped too closely together on the two dancefloors, and this was the reason invoked to stop new participants from coming in. During negotiations concerning capacity, it goes without saying that the authorities were aware that this type of event is first and foremost party- and dance-oriented. Although we do not wish to give the impression that the safety of participants can ever be anything but the number-one priority, the nature of the reason given is this case leaves us puzzled.
One can only wonder at the degree of determination demonstrated by the authorities each year to undermine the efforts of the organizers and in the process discourage them from staging events such as this. At the same time they exasperate all fans of electronic dance music by refusing to legitimize the existence of the culture and the lifestyle that these fans adhere to.
The White Party Week organization wishes to thank those participants who were frustrated by the time it took to enter the event for their patience
___________________
RayRay
|
