Cryin' the Blues about Chairs
posted by The Chair
Well, I do find it amusing how the Bluesfest just couldn't figure out how to manage the "chair" problem. So now it's back to the free-for-all mayhem that we've become accustomed to. We might have a new opportunity. Now that Mayor Lex and his posse have stopped funding the crack pipe program, maybe they can divert the saved funds for umpire chairs to distribute to those "standingly-challenged" Blues-festers.
Labels:
bluesfest,
crack pipe,
Ottawa,
Solutions
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3 comments:
I'm fascinated by the moral positions of the people involved in the Bluesfest Chair Problem.
The Sitters: We paid our money, came early and waited patiently to see this performance; now these late comers are blocking the view that we worked so hard for. Unlike them, we are not violating anyone's rights!
The Standers: This kind of music is not meant to be listened to from a chair! If these people truly appreciated this music they would not be sitting down. By forcing them to stand, we are helping them properly appreciate the music and the moment.
The Organizers: Although every other festival in town can manage and enforce a no standing in chair zones policy with volunteers who simply ask standing people to sit down or move: "We can't enforce this kind of a policy." "You can bring chairs, but if people want to get up and dance, we will not be telling people to sit down".
You see, it's about letting the people dance and giving fans what they want. It is not about forcing the chairs out so they can cram more people into the space and make more money.
I'm looking forward to my next outing to a blues club where I will find everyone on the dance floor with me because blues fans got to dance.
Hey, I noticed no one was sitting around at Daniel O'Connell's last night. You were at the wrong place.
Short Guy, knowing you as a long-time advocate of sittin' on your ass, who, by the way, has not been to witness the unholy snarls at this year's fest, I find your 'moral' deconstruction fascinating. Let me offer counterpoint:
Sitters: "Chairs grant all of us in toto to set up vast chair farms that strangle emergency (or any other) access from one side of the field to another; each of us individually the automatic right to claim enough space for six (including palatial legroom); and the right to verbally abuse, elbow and/or slug anybody who invades our self-proclaimed inviolate space. And by the way, when the concert starts, we'll all stand up anyway."
Footnote: The people who pitched a tent in front of the River Stage "for the kids" the other night pushed this envelope of lese majeste even further...
Standers: We paid as much as the chair guys, but because each of them is taking the space of four or six in the middle, we're crammed off to narrow strips on the sides like hogs in an overloaded pig truck. So we'll just stomp your insteps and slosh beer on your heads and generally act just as boorish as you, on our way through."
Organizers Hey. It's not us, eh?
In the heat of the moment, few are very damn polite about it at all. And I don't see nobody offerin' solutions, either.
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