As most of you are aware this week is O Week in our fair city, and all the uni students swarm on Civic for a wave of parties, special events and cheap drinks. One of the highlights of O Week for the last couple of years has been Academy’s famed Foam Party boasting the title of biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Last night myself and a couple of mates decided that we would go along as it had been a few years since we’d been to one, and surely who can resist a night of getting wet and soapy with a bunch of strangers? There’s also the allure of lots of cute boys running around shirtless, but digress, that is a story for another time…
Anyway, my friend and I rocked up early at 9pm, and there was already a line starting to build outside the club. We waiting patiently in line just like on any other regular night out in the city. After about 45 minutes of waiting, news was travelling down the line that they wouldn’t be letting people in until after 10pm, fair enough. So we continued to wait. As we waited more and more people showed up. People in front of us started letting their friends in line. This is fine, we’ve all done it at some point, but it started to get rediculous when you start letting 15+ friends (not exageration) in. More waiting and the line behind us was getting longer and longer, to the point where it was getting close to turning around the corner onto Mort Street.
10pm clocked over and there was no progress being made in the line and still more and more people lining up, now on the sides of the original line. Around 1045 when no people had still been let into the club people started getting restless and rowdy. The bouncers were no where to be seen and quite honestly, were not walking up and down the line to ensure that things were running smoothly.
Soon after things started to get way out of control. There was a lot of pushing going on – then it started to escalate. In the section of the line which I was in a large crowd crush started to happen. It was like being inside the D Barricade at the Big Day Out – and this was just a line outside a night club! Now you may think I am exagerating, how could there possibly be a crowd crush in a nightclub line? This is Canberra after all. But as I slowly started to get more and more crushed along with the 50 or 60 people who were in the same ‘segment’ of the line as me, I started to get more and more concerned. This wasn’t right.
I kept thinking to myself, where are the bouncers? A) Why arent they stopping the people from pushing in? B) Why arent they stopping the people who are creating this crowd crush? and C) Why is no one getting let into the club, thusly alleviating this mess?
At around 11 I had had enough, I literally couldn’t move and I was getting pushed to the point where myself and those around me couldn’t breath properly. I can hold my own in a mosh pit, I’m used to the crushing and the crowd surges, but the girls around me were not – they were quite short and I suspected that it wouldnt be long before someone got hurt. At that point I basically said stuff this, and attempted to get out of the crowd crush, it took a good ten mintues of pushing to get free. When myself and my mates were finally out I walked up to the front of the line to see what the hell was going on. The bouncers were standing around, completely unconcerned about what was going on. I raised my voice to them informing them that they had a large crowd crush going on in the middle of the line and people were getting hurt. They couldn’t have cared less, just staring at me blankly. I lost my temper and yelled, “Where the hell is your duty of care huh?” To which they told me to “Shut Up and Fuck Off”.
Shame Academy! Shame!
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