At The Gates yesterday. Is this a little behind the scenes look of what was happening? If you attended the event you know Enforced did not perform and the doors do not open until 8 PM.
SO, Let’s get into this. The day before I am informed the band needs to switch out their tour bus at 2 AM. They are Chicago with a 8 Hour drive and border cross ahead of them and expected to be at the venue by noon. I acknowledged they probably will not be request they let me know when you cross the border. Â By 10 AM I still had not heard from them so I reached out and finally made contact at 11 AM to find out they are having a problem with their new bus and are stuck in Kalamazoo Michigan. They got rolling at noon seven hours from the border not including having to deal with immigration.
If At the gates had not shown up, the ticket would be invalid. operating cost of opening the Danforth musical would’ve been a difficult decision to have the event with only Municipal Waste and Enforced. As mentioned in the Facebook event music hall has a curfew where the show must complete by 11 PM. All tickets would have needed to be refunded and a quick calculation we need to take place to see if we could have moved forward with municipal waste and enforced. But we were not going there yet as we were still working to make a event happen with at the gates.
They were different no turning back points of the day that were outlined of labour and staffing expenses if the event is not cancelled this is the cost at this hour and at this hour. The first worry was what actual time with the band make immigration and how long with the process and take. No decisions really could be made until then. Â They would have to have a smooth and speedy crossing for us to have a show hopefully with all three bands. Only one of the two happened at the border.
Faced with calculating time of arrival now for at the gates and us being able to open the doors when they arrive unfortunately enforced need to be removed from the show because we cannot open the doors until the headlining band listed on the ticket is at the venue. Knowing they already had bus problems we were concerned it could happen again and as we mentioned above no at the gates the ticket is invalid. So we waited and as I mentioned in the past paragraph different timelines past of Added expenses regardless of the event being cancelled or not. We still chose to continue moving forward. Our Do or Die for our final full cost expense came at 7 PM and we need to have the band there by 8 PM in order to have a show. I continue checking in with the band hourly and by all calculations I seen they would make it by 8 PM. So as I mentioned I kept moving forward. Based on the circumstances of the day I could’ve cancelled this event well before 3 PM because we were not going to make or 7 PM door but I decided delivering Municipal Waste and at the gates would still be a concert that people would want to see, and so I cross my fingers and hope for the best and sure enough we made it happen! At the gates did a show and go as everybody in the lineup witnessed rolled up 7:55 did not demand a soundcheck brought their gear and we open the doors at 8 PM 30 had municipal waste on stage at 8:30. I’ve had this happen once before a long time ago where the band respected their fans and rolled in with no soundcheck, but one of the time I had a band leave their fans in -30 weather two hours when they showed up right before doors so they could set up and do a sound check…
Anyhow with quite a stressful day under my belt I still made the show happen, and I was glad I did take the gamble to do so.
