So I know that I'm late to this thread, but with work the last couple of days I just haven't gotten the time to log on, however I will recap a large portion of my experience with the ga for Sunday's show, as I feel I had a good perspective and may be able to provide some information that isn't already here, but I do apologize ahead of time for the pretty much essay I'm about to write.
My friend and I, both of us are 18, just as a sidenote, arrived to Gillette around 7:30 in the morning on Sunday, the day of the show. They actually had one lot open for parking, which we didn't expect, and we paid and parked for the day. We walked over near the stadium to where the gate is that was specified on the tickets for ga, which is this plaza by this open end of the stadium, where there is a bridge, and normally a fence, but without the fence you can walk right onto field level. We got into this plaza, and a lone security guard told us we couldn't be there until 2:30, and we had to either go to the parking lot or go up the stairs to the shopping area. Now, at the stadium this shopping area has all kinds of places to go, and walking up we expected to find all of the 200 or so people that were "in line." However, we got to the top and there were 3 other guys our age, and maybe one or two other people there just doing their thing. At the very least, you would expect the people running this "line" to be at the top of where security said to go, but they were nowhere to be found. About an hour later we were asked by one of the nicer people that was towards the front of the line that we should go get numbers by such and such place, which was all hidden and tucked away, where not many would find it by chance. We didn't believe going into it that Gillette would honor the system, being a privately owned stadium, and expected security to basically tell the people to f*** off, but got numbers on the off chance that they honored their system. We sat down for a while in some shade and went to our car and whatever for a while to kill some time, as again, there was no one allowed in that plaza by the entrance.
Fast forward a few hours later, and after a while we had gone over and befriended the security guard and wanted to see what he knew but wasn't really able to tell us much as he hadn't really been told anything other than to keep people out of the plaza. At this point we headed back up and the line runner was telling everybody that in an hour everyone needed to line up in order because the venue was handing out wristbands at noon in that order. After a little while we talked with the security guard and he said that yes, they were handing out wristbands at noon, but never said they were honoring their system. Over killing some time we befriended and talked to some other fans and were figuring out what we wanted to do line-wise. During this time we were down in said plaza either in the shade or in the pro shop to keep cool and the line runners kept coming around and started to get pushy with us and others around. Later on we were talking with the security guard and a few other people and another line runner came and started screaming about how there were people in the plaza and how if they could be in the plaza she was going to march her 400 people down into the plaza, which the security guard talked her down saying he doesn't know who was there for the show and most had just left the pro shop, and the rest of us were just asking questions. at around noon, we were still in the plaza as we wanted to hear from a security guard that they were handing out these wristbands in order and honoring them before getting in line like a sheep, to which we were cut off from the security guards with wristbands and cornered and basically forced up the stairs by one of the line runners, at which point we decided we weren't gonna fight them because we came to have a good time, not get mad and upset over childish sh**. they came around and wristbanded us, but the wristbands themselves did not have numbers and people from the line came and wrote the numbers on. The big f*** up here came, because during wristbanding, the first 150 people or so were given the blue official jt 2017 tour wristbands, and the rest of us just plain green ones (this will come into play later).
Now here is where everything started to go astray. People in line were told multiple different times when to come back. We were told 3:30, others were told 2:30 and again others were told 2:45. We decided to go to the car and sit in the a/c for a bit and came back after eating to see if anything changed and there was 2 big lines. Not huge, like later in the day, but relatively long. A third line was forming behind the initial line runner that got pushy and nasty but was told by the other one, the one who was screaming at security earlier on in the day that they were only opening two, so she cut over to the front of the line next to her. Both of them now started screaming bloody murder at security (like we could hear it where we were in line over the 300 or so people in the plaza talking). Later on, they started yelling for all of the blue wristbands to go to the front, and not having them we didn't move, and rather got pushed back because of the blue wristbanded people. Throughout the day rumors were flying about what was happening and the one that screwed us, is we were told that after security checks they were re-ordering everybody by number in pens. Yeah. That never happened. as a matter of fact, we didn't even get through security before they cut it off and everyone else waited and watched as the ones that were in pens went on the floor. We got mad, because we saw people in the 500s going through ahead of us and onto the floor, when they got there hours after us. We ended up getting in and being about five back from the tree stage, but after all of the shifting, and my friend being both timid and exhausted, we got the short end of the stick and were probably 8-10 rows back, but, again, we were just happy to be there, we just wish we didn't have to deal with all of the B.S.. Having the numbers we had, we at the time would've liked for them to honor that system, but it just shows you how bad that system really is when the venue doesn't cooperate. People that got there at 7:30 in the morning were behind people that showed up right before gates opened because of terrible miscommunication, and a terrible system. Obviously I'm not adding much to the "what needs to be done to replace it" talkings per se, but I hope our point of view can at least aid to the discussion a bit.
Big thanks to those that read all the way through, you guys are the real mvps
