B.C. Lions' home-opener street party is on again, with safety at front of mind

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If you’re ready to take the party to the streets, the B.C. Lions are too.

After the Lapu Lapu Day festival tragedy, the CFL team considered cancelling their pre-game street party concert, in which parts of Robson and Beatty streets in front of B.C. Place would be shut down to traffic.

The alternative plan was to confine pre-pre game festivities solely to the Terry Fox Plaza, but the Lions backtracked and reverted back to their original plan to block off the streets to accommodate the massive crowds expected for Saturday’s season-opener — and Snoop Dogg’s pre-game concert inside the building.

“The challenge that we had, especially last year, because we had sold the building out, is we were almost competing against ourselves. We have this (pre-pre-game) artist outside, and everyone wants to stay outside and watch the artist, and then they all want to enter the building at the same time,” said Lions president Duane Vienneau. “And logistically, it was causing us a challenge … What happens is, because of 50,000 people, all you’re doing is congesting the area where 75 per cent of the people enter the building.

“So we made a decision, that if we’re in the same sort of sellout position, that we’re going to do a smaller, simpler outdoor event and focus on getting people in the building and getting them in safely.

“Because what they’re really here to see is the main artist, Snoop Dogg, or 50 Cent, or whoever that is … So because of that, we made a decision just last weekend and said, ‘Forget it. We’re better off going back shutting down Robson.’ ”

There are now fewer than 1,000 tickets left for Saturday’s game against the Edmonton Elks — game time is a 7 p.m. start, with the doors to B.C. Place opening at 4:45 p.m. for the concert — with even the obstructed-view nosebleed seats in the upper bowl disappearing as quickly as they’re posted. The Leos should match the 53,788 who came to last year’s game, which opened with a 50 Cent concert.

“It’s going crazy,” Vienneau said of ticket sales. “(Owner) Amar Doman has outdone himself again on this one. Every year we say that, but it’s just where it’s getting crazier and crazier. We’ve opened up every possible seat you can; we’re scraping every damn seat. We find a seat, we enter it (in the sale system), and it just sort of gets evaporated.”

The 100-block of Robson will be shut down, as will the section of Beatty Street that accesses the front of the stadium where the street event will be. There will be a DJ, beer garden and Gin and Juice bar on the street, with the plaza left clear to allow access to the stadium.

The City of Vancouver deferred comment to the Vancouver Police Department, who said they would have an update on safety protocols on Friday.

One of the new tools in the vehicle mitigation plan is the fast-tracked acquisition of the Meridian Rapid Defence Group’s Archer 1200 barriers. The company had reached out to Vancouver offering their product after the tragic mass killing during the Lapu Lapu Day festival in April, where a man with mental-health issues drove his car through a crowd, killing 11 and wounding many more.

The steel Meridian barriers can stop vehicles up to 2,250 kilograms, despite their size and ability to be positioned and moved by a single person.

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“You don’t stop any kind of traffic flow coming anywhere close to where the public are. It was always run with that in mind before, but … these new barricades, you can’t get a vehicle past them, essentially,” said Vienneau.

“Obviously, safety is the most important piece. I know, the police and everyone have been looking at everything very, very, very closely … We’ll follow all the directions of the city and the policing and all the recommendations on what we need to do to be safe.”

The city has already released a preliminary report on outdoor special events safety, with the final report to land no later than Aug. 27, and a provincial commission of inquiry is expected to be completed by the end of June.