Idlewild kick off day 2 at Twickenham



Idlewild
‘s Roddy Wooble catches the last few rays of the day. In the afternoon, U2 soundchecked ‘I still haven’t found’, ‘Zoo Station’ and ‘Vertigo’.


We’d like to share with you some information on yesterday’s show that martin and Karl Otto from U2.se reported on their blog. Thanks to Marie for the translation:

“The guys where at the show yesterday and told us that the queing was extremely well organized:
– Fences everywhere.
– A lot of security guards.
– Watertaps on several spots, which was a good thing since it was a very hot day in London.
– If you wanted to leave the queue, you got a note from one of the guards. You then had 30 minutes before you had to be back. If you came back within 30 minutes, you got your spot back, if you were late you had to go to the back of the line.

Of course there were some scalpers around. A U2-fan wanted to sell his spare tickets to face value, but still got more than he paid for them. He then asked for a ’30-minute-time-out”, went to the closest shop and came back with a big bunch of popsicles that he had bought for his profit, and threw them out to his fellow concert-goers who where queing in the hot sunlight.
There are stories like this that makes you proud being a U2 fan.

At 2 PM wristbands that allowed entry into the space closest to the stage were handed out by the guards. Since there’s room for 4500 people in ‘the golden circle’, pretty much everyone that where in line at that time got a wristband. They where then let into the arena about 1 hour before the rest of the GA ticket holders.

There where also lots of security guards keeping order when the gates where opened. No running where allowed and no jumping over fences trying to get ahead of the people in front of you. A few people who started running where catched by the guards and put at the back of the line. This routine made 4500 people walk into the venue of a U2 concert!

All this made it very safe and very unstressful for the people attending the gig. Let’s just hope that other venues all over Europe learn from this.”