The security team at the Wellmont Theater did an absolutely horrible job managing the crowd for…read moreFreya Skye's concert. I have never seen such a lack of organization, communication, and basic crowd control at an event geared toward children, teens, and young adults.
My daughter and her friends had the highest-tier VIP package, with doors scheduled to open at 4:30 p.m. We arrived at 8 a.m. specifically to secure our place at the barricade. Fans had actually taken the initiative to organize the line themselves, recording names, VIP packages, and numbers to help maintain order. Everything was manageable until security got involved.
Around the scheduled entry time, a security guard came outside and simply announced that anyone with VIP should come over to him. There was no designated line, no organized process, and no plan for moving people safely. Naturally, people rushed toward him, and guests who had arrived only an hour or two earlier ended up ahead of people who had been waiting since early that morning. Security then started yelling at everyone to form a single-file line, leaving the crowd to sort out the confusion they had just created.
Things got even worse inside. VIP guests were initially told to go back outside if they weren't purchasing merchandise, despite VIP entry already being underway. Hundreds of people were then crowded into the vestibule, with people gathered directly in front of three sets of double doors leading into the auditorium. There was no apparent effort to organize the crowd or create a safe, clear path for entry.
When it was finally time to enter the auditorium, security opened only the doors on the far left. People standing near the middle and right doors were told to go back, while others were already being allowed through the left entrance. This caused people to push toward one set of doors in an attempt to get inside. There was no orderly entry process, and the original line was completely lost. People who had waited for hours were scattered throughout the crowd, and children were crying while parents were understandably upset.
Thankfully, one concertgoer had taken the initiative to assign numbers to people waiting in line that morning. A parent eventually brought this to the production team's attention, and someone from the team made an announcement asking people with those numbers to line up so they could restore some order and get the early arrivals to the barricade. It took another parent and the production team to fix a problem that venue security should have prevented in the first place.
What made the experience even worse was the attitude of the security staff. When I voiced concerns about the lack of organization, one guard became defensive and insisted that security was simply following instructions from the artist's team. He also told me not to put the blame on security or post about it on social media. Another guard then threatened to have my entire party removed if I said one more thing. This was an entirely inappropriate response to a parent raising legitimate concerns about crowd safety and event management.
I have attended other Freya Skye concerts, and we know people who attended the previous night's show in Connecticut. Those events had organized entry procedures, separate lines for different admission types, and numbered queue systems. The chaos at the Wellmont was not an inevitable part of a popular concert. It was a failure to manage the crowd properly.
And before anyone responds with the argument that everyone eventually got inside, that completely misses the point. We arrived at 8 a.m. because barricade placement matters to these young fans. If getting inside and standing wherever there was room had been the goal, we would not have needed to arrive that early. The entire point of arriving early was to secure a place at the front, and security's handling of the crowd disregarded that completely.
My biggest concern is safety. This was a crowd of children, teenagers, and young adults, many of whom were excited and eager to get to the stage. Having hundreds of people crowded against doors, then directing them toward a single entrance without an orderly process, created an entirely foreseeable risk of pushing, falls, and injuries. It should not take an actual injury for a venue to recognize how dangerous that situation could become.
The Wellmont Theater needs to seriously reevaluate its security team, staff training, communication, and crowd-management procedures for youth-oriented concerts. Security should be there to maintain order, protect attendees, and de-escalate situations, not create confusion, yell at people, become defensive when questioned, or threaten to remove families for speaking up. This experience was unacceptable, and I hope the venue takes these concerns seriously before another event puts its young attendees at risk.
