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Extra security officers will be on hand at Tropicana Field to prevent the mayhem that has occurred at a few other concerts with festival seating.
By GINA VIVINETTO
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 22, 1999
ST. PETERSBURG -- The Dec. 29 hard rock bill of Metallica, Kid Rock, Creed and Sevendust at Tropicana Field, already raising eyebrows for its raucous musical content, features another surprise: festival seating on the stadium floor.
The concert, the first live music performance at Tropicana Field since the stadium reopened in 1998 after renovation, is a departure from the stadium's history of hosting adult-oriented acts such as Eric Clapton and Billy Joel.
Festival seating, often called general admission, consists of unassigned spots without chairs on the floor of the venue. Once the norm at concerts during the 1970s and 1980s, festival seating has been out of vogue in recent years because of the potential for fans to injure themselves.
Even without seats, spots on the floor are the most coveted at concerts. All 10,000 floor tickets for next week's show are sold out. The stadium has a 51,310 capacity for rock concerts.
Some bands -- particularly heavy metal acts such as Metallica -- request festival seating at their shows because they say fans want to move to the music instead of remaining seated. But the movement can get out of hand when it turns to pushing and fighting.
Some venues have tried to control the situation by making folding chairs available, only to see fans toss them aside. Another option is bolting chairs to the floor, but at some shows -- for instance, a Motley Crue concert in West Valley City, Utah, last year -- band members urge fans to rip out the chairs, and they do.
Metallica itself is no stranger to concert mayhem. An Ohio man several weeks ago settled a lawsuit with Metallica after being paralyzed in a crowd-surfing incident (where a fan is passed through the crowd by other fans lifting his body overhead) at one of the band's 1994 concerts.
The worst incident of unassigned seating violence was a December 1979 concert by the Who in Cincinnati at which 11 people were crushed to death as fans rushed to enter the arena.
For the Tropicana Field show, concert goers with tickets on the floor must secure a spot on a first-come, first-served basis. Those fans will stand throughout the concert, which begins around 5 p.m. and is estimated to continue for six to seven hours. Other ticket holders will sit in assigned seats throughout the stadium. All tickets for the event are $50.
Bob Leighton, stadium manager, says the festival seating was Metallica's choice, but he says Tropicana Field will employ "significantly more" security for the show. The stadium has hired off-duty police officers from both the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
Eric Blankenship, marketing coordinator for the Ice Palace in Tampa, says the arena frequently hosts shows with general admission on the venue's floor. Last month's Lone Star show was entirely general admission so that some of the 7,325 country fans could line dance in front of the stage. Blankenship says even hard rock acts, such as Korn and Marilyn Manson, have played at the Ice Palace with general admission on the floor. Blankenship says those shows produced no more mayhem than any typical rock concert, but the Ice Palace has generally had only 1,000 to 1,500 fans on the floor.
The fact that the Dec. 29 Tropicana Field show features hard rock and 10,000 unassigned seats doesn't concern Leighton. "These shows happen all over the country without problems," he said. "It's just a matter of preparation."