Memorable Basketball Game at Verizon Center

Basketball game between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Lakers was held on December 2, 2015 at 7pm at Verizon Center. This game was memorable because this be the last season Kobe stayed and the last game for him in Washington dc. Basketball tickets sold out so quickly and someone were selling double priced tickets. Therefore, the stadium must be crowded and harder to control than usual.

Transportation to get to Verizon Center is convenient.  Just take yellow line to  Chinatown Station and walk just 2 minutes. For normal audience, doors were open at 6pm. However, I have group sales ticket from the manager of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. Therefore, I had priority to watch warm-up of the team at 5:15 pm.

map of verizon center

We entered the infield through section 119 which was the red area in the picture.  Until 6pm, people were getting more and more. I had a friend who was the journalist of Tecent told me that Kobe and other basketball player would enter through the gate right close to section 119. More and more people were standing near the entrance.(Picture 2) Event staff who wore yellow uniform were checking people's tickets again and again to control order of the event. If the audience had the seats not in this section area, event staff would let them go. At first, their were friendly reminding. However, fans were getting more and more and they could not control. These crazy fans were included me.

                                                       crazy fans waiting for their stars

 I desperately wanted to get signature of Kobe or other players. At the first time, I explained to the staff that please let me stay. However, she just talked to me rude and point to the exit to ask me leave. And I began to be a bad guy, ignoring her voice, just standing in the corner and waiting. I know that for the crowd management,  proper behavior of participants are really important. However, at that point,  I were just like other crazy fans. We were totally sure that we did not want to influence others. Actually we were not standing in pathway, we just stood on the way people would not get through.  Unfortunately, that came the crowd management problem.

event staff try to control the fans

 I totally understand the thoughts of these fans, also, as a master student who were learning event management, I felt so shameful to against management of event staff. This time I was confused. How to control this situation well and also make participants satisfied.  Luckily, I got signature of one of the players.

                                                               game began at 7pm

  Since the game began, audience were at order sitting on their seats and watching the exciting game. Only one time that I might worry about the disorder was when John Wall doing free throw, fans of Kobe made high volume sound of boo to distract him. Some crazy fans might got angry and fight with those booers.  Therefore, I thought that personal qualities were really important to an event.

                                                  thank you Kobe for 20 amazing years

Finally, Kobe Bryant led Lakers to win the game.  It was a really memorable and amazing game which also made me think about event management in a different way.