Emotional Crowd Inside Jackson Memorial Service; Few Outside

Pretty lame. I was wishing for a crowd in downtown. It isn't the same watching it alone at your house.

MJ was a great artist but hopefully we can get back to real news after today. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?p=2088

Fox 11 reported they wer giving out tix to people in the street because a few hundred were empty prior to the start.

As for LAPD...way to spend too much money and then ask for help. It seemed really obvious as of even last night when there were NO people and tons of cop cars that they were over-doing it. 750,000? more like 1,000 from my view on olympic. Right now I can see 20 officers lined up in front of a quiet crowd of 200 people. Not to mention the 30 porta potys set up on Flower, when 1 or 2 would have sufficed.

It was a huge overreaction. There were almost more police than people in the streets - blockades all over, police cars and even parking enforcement vehicles blocking the streets. Jan Perry is a smart woman, but she got this completely wrong. It was a huge waste of money for this overreaction. Vanzants is right, you could even tell from last nights small crowds that crowds would not be a problem today.

Worldclass cities keep the public safe but they dont operate from a place of fear or small mindedness. Los Angeles did. Worldclass cities can handle the masses and not scare them away. Los Angeles forced the public away. Worldclass cities have large public spaces to accommodate the masses for such events - Los Angeles does not. Very disappointing.

boooo to AEG and downtown event planners...when they were promoting LA Live, they were saying that the plaza was to be used for downtown gatherings...instead, they close it when there's something remotely exciting happening...Emmy's,Grammy's.AMA's...let's close the plaza to the public!,,,and let's open it when nothing's happening so the people can stare at the concrete pavement....now, forget the upcoming ESPYs, they will do the same for sure.

i live in southpark and i'm this close to boycotting all those venues and restaurants at LA Live.

The plaza would have easily accomodated all the poeple in the perimeter and everyone would have been happy....instead, it seemed there were more police than regular people, and people who showed up were disappointed....people at the top of these events seem to have no idea or doesn't get the pulse of the people...when will they ever get it right?

Lapd, they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. When they attempt to control the scene by deploying too many officers, they are criticized, but if they don't place enough, they are criticized again. I believe they did the best they could do under the time constraints. Let's applaud the lapd for keeping it peaceful versus criticizing them. There is really no way to know how many people were going o show up for this thing.

my point was, even if the anticipated number of people did show up, they still should have used the plaza....they should just have a better peace keeping strategy.

Say if the same number of people are anticipated to show up on New year's Eve, will they close it again?

Interesting point re New Year's. If I recall correctly, while Nokia Plaza was open to the public last New Year's, there was zero programming there for the evening (just the same Christmas "tree" show). That's one way to keep the size of the crowds manageable. While marketed as Times Square West, I'm not sure AEG ever wanted it to be like Times Square on New Year's Eve.

While it has served as a public gathering space in the past (the Obama inauguration), the Nokia Plaza remains privately owned. And for better or worse, it serves as a public gathering space only on AEG's terms. To be fair, even with Chick Hearn Court closed to traffic, the space is not that big. It couldn't accommodate the Lakers victory parade/ceremony, and it wouldn't have accommodated all of Michael Jackson's fans had they not been advised to stay away. The city still lacks a suitable PUBLIC space for these types of events. LA Live is not that kind of space, and perhaps was never intended to be.

even Times Square in itself is not that big of a place, but on New Year's Eve, they use all the roads and streets that lead up to it as a gathering space...I'm sure it can be done at LA Live too, if they use the perimeter streets surrounding it....especially if they take advantage of the height of the Ritz Carlton as a launching pad like they use the Times building in NYC.

Guest,

I disagree. In terms of flat space leading toward a focal point (One Times Square, where the ball drops on New Year's), Times Square is huge compared to Nokia Plaza. If the big screen above Wolfgang Puck's is the focal point of the Nokia Plaza, there's not much space. But if Nokia Plaza were facing Figueroa or Olympic, or better yet, was built on the corner of Figueroa and Olympic...

But it's not, and some believe this was intentional to discourage people/consumers from leaving the AEG grounds. The more cynical think AEG doesn't care if people drive to LA Live, spend their money there and leave, without any other interactions with downtown.

Is there a focal point like One Times Square in LA, which essentially sits in the middle of two large streets and a flat expanse of pedestrian median? If/when completed, the Civic Park (Grand Avenue Project) could turn City Hall into that type of focal point.

Jon

Eric, I forgot about that. Thanks for pointing it out. I still think, even if it were available, Nokia Plaza is too small to accommodate all of Michael Jackson's fans (or fans during a Lakers victory parade, or revelers during a city-wide New Year's Eve party). For example, this is what it looks like with only 1500 - 2000 people:

http://www.blogdowntown.com/2009/01/3984-thousands-turn-out-for-inauguration-event

AEG did say the plaza would be used for public gatherings. And it certainly could have been for this event. Even if the crowd were 10x(+) bigger, it could have worked. Especially if they utilized the surrounding streets. And the large screens would have been used to their potential. The space sits empty all year, and this was a prime opportunity to utilize it.

Instead AEG keeps it off limits, like my great-grandmothers plastic covered sofa. Or the Contreras Pool built for 160million, and then closed off families and children who live near the pool, because if the public were to use it they might damage it.

AEG was likely scared because of the broken windows and fires caused by Lakers' fans who got over-amped and rowdy after winning. They didn't want their windows broken at this event. But this was not a basketball championship. It was a memorial for a singer.

I hope AEG becomes a little more civic minded, and and starts to work with the public to utilize the plaza as they said they would when they built it. Until then, I'm joining "guest" in his boycott.

John, you are right, it is certainly not a perfect space. The Grand Avenue Project would be, and this event speaks to the great need for it, but until then i think we should make the best out of what we have which is Nokia Plaza. In addition to the large screen above Wolfgang Pucks, there are several screens in the Plaza that are visible from outside, and a very large screen on the ESPN zone building visible from far down Figueroa St. and down 11th street.

And since LA Central still hasn't broken ground, lots of fans could have watched the ESPN Zone screen from that massive parking lot on the southeast corner of 11th and Fig. Good points guys, and I agree that while not ideal, the LA Live area could have worked. It did seem that the city was more interested in protecting property than addressing the public's desire to share in this event.

I'm still not sure the area could handle hundreds of thousands of people, but it certainly could have handled much more than the few ticketless individuals who bothered to be there.

LA Live is just a mall, nothing more. Think of it like Citywalk and The Promenade.

You're asking a lot for an outdoor mall.

I'm really glad it happened the way it happened. LAPD did an excellent job and AEG planning couldn't have been better.

I really hope we NEVER again have to face that much people trying to congregate in the streets, please don't let the negative comments affect you LAPD it was an excellent work.

On the whole, it was a big disappointment (for a funeral/memorial thingy). There were barely a thousand people in the surrounding area and it felt more like a police rally. I saw cops on foot, on bicycles, on segways, on horses, and in helicopters. I think the main (valid) criticism of the police presence is that yesterday was an overreaction to the Lakers Riot a few weeks ago. They were vastly under-prepared for that event, so this time they decided not to be caught short and overdid the whole thing. Personally, I don't buy into that whole attitude that you can't criticize the police force, because they're "damned if they do, damned if they don't". My main criticism is that there seems to be no flexibility in their planning. They follow a rigid plan and stick to it. Besides, they all looked pretty happy to be making overtime money. And the thing that really got my goat about yesterday was that there was NO MUSIC!! A couple of tiny stereos here and there, but nothing to keep people entertained. Next time Michael Jackson dies, I'm just going to stay home like the LAPD recommends...

Im sure glad Vivo and Vanzant know how to run billion dollar agencies... gosh we've been missing thier talent..wonder where theyve been all this time... oh never mind

So the city is asking for money and everyone is up in arms over the cost of the MJ memorial. City pegs the total around $1.4 million. Jan Perry went on everyone network news station last week and talked about the special fund they had to cover this.

Not a mention since last Friday about this fund. Did Perry over-step her boundaries during her moment of glory (acting as Mayor for the weekend)?

Oh boy. Per TMZ, Councilman Dennis Zine told KTTV today that AEG made $50,000 by charging the media to use risers outside the venue. I'm guessing these were the risers that filled Nokia Plaza.

So not only was the public denied access to Nokia Plaza, but the space was used for AEG's direct monetary gain. (Unless it costs that much to assemble and take down such risers, in which case AEG was just seeking reimbursement for expenses?)

WHAT?..You mean they ain't renamed the place as the "world class" Michael Jackson Memorial Plaza yet?

Perhaps they could put up a hundred foot tall statue of the guy standing there with his chimp. Yeah, Downtown's answer to that transvestite ballerina out in Venice.

Really! That would be the perfect civic monument to the City of L.A.