Music Department apologizes for concert over-crowding

Deborah Temkin A&E Editor

On Oct. 9, students, alumni, parents, and Poughkeepsie community members came together to hear the Mozart Requiem, performed by the Vassar Orchestra and Choir. Students poured in five minutes before the concert, which started promptly at 8 p.m., to find no empty seats and a buzzing auditorium. These students found space in the back of the Martel Recital Hall and down the stairs of the aisles, which, unfortunately, was a fire hazard.

According to the fire ordinances set upon Martel Recital Hall, only 482 people may be present within the audience, with the potential of adding 12 chairs along the back wall. On the night of Oct. 9, at least 100 additional people were packed into the auditorium. “It was simply an unsafe situation,”said Concerts Administrator for the Music Department, Karen Murley.

As such, the music faculty present at the concert met seconds before Director and Conductor of the Vassar Orchestra, Eduardo Navega, raised his baton and requested the fire marshal to ask the several students sitting in the aisle ways to leave.

“The fire marshal that was there was new, I think, and hadn’t done concerts before. He said that since he could still walk down the aisles he would not remove people from the hall,” said Michael Pisani, Chair and Associate Professor of the Music Department. “Brian [Mann, Professor of Music] thought something needed to be done. We were both thrilled so many people were there, but we couldn’t risk having our hall being shut down for fire ordinance violations,” he added.

Pisani said that any member of the audience could have called in the violation and had the hall fined. As the concert master signaled the oboist to tune the orchestra for the second piece, Mann called the audience's attention from the back of the hall and asked for every member of the choir sitting in the audience and every person sitting in the aisles to leave immediately and allow the concert to continue.

“The audience really pulled together at that moment,” said Pisani, “about 30 to 40 more openings were found.”

The reaction to the situation, however, was anything but pleasant. During intermission, several of the alumni present for the volunteer seminars that took place that weekend voiced their concerns over the reaction of the concert's staff and the potential for the situation to be repeated. Pisani and Murley understood this sentiment, but stated that there was no way of predicting the turnout.

“Our concerts are free and open to the public,” Murley said, pointing to the music department bulletin each member of the Vassar community received earlier this year. “If every one of the recipients [of our bulletin] came to a performance, we’d be severely overcrowded. Over 5,000 people receive this invitation.”

According to Murley, the concerts are open to the Poughkeepsie community and Vassar alumni. Currently, there is no ticket system as there is for other events, including student dramatic performances and special on-campus lecturers. However, never before has any music department performance drawn such a crowd.

“There’s no way to tell student interest in performances. We’ve prepared extra staff for crowds and then had no crowds and did not have a full house,” said Murley.
The Music Department is considering several other options to prevent a similar incident as well as expressed its concern of the event's understaffing and inexperienced ushers and fire marshals. Murley and Pisani additionally explained that, regardless of new procedures for mental counts and audience controls, if as many people arrive for a performance as they did for the one on Oct. 9, some will be turned away.

With a set calendar, and no way to add additional performances to the continuously used hall, the only solution is to post door opening and closing times on flyers for the performances. “When do most students arrive for a concert? They all show up right before it’s going to start, and when there is such an influx it is hard to control the crowd,” said Pisani.

Whatever the final solution amounts to, the Music Department is diligently trying to prevent another situation in which overcrowding affects the enjoyment of a performance. Pisani said to the students prevented from seeing the Oct. 9 performance, “We’re so sorry you couldn’t be there. We couldn’t think of any other safe alternative.”