BY KANDRÉ MCDONALD, Freelance Writer
Patrons at the UTech Cheerleading Competition, staged last Friday at the University's Activity Centre, used the trees as torches during the show. - CONTRIBUTED
DISORDER PREVAILED LAST Friday at the Students' Activity Centre, UTech, Old Hope Road as hundreds of patrons broke down sections of the perimeter fence to get inside the venue. The occasion was the annual Students' Union Cheerleading Competition, which saw hundreds of patrons converging on the venue.
The event was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. however, it did not get under way until minutes to 9 p.m. Most of this time was spent trying to get the crowd calm, the judges bench clear and the decision on whether or not they should continue with the proceedings.
The chaos started before 6 p.m. as hundreds of patrons were becoming restless after standing in lines and not being allowed to enter the venue. At minutes to 7 p.m. they began admitting patrons, however, on the inside there were problems as some patrons had taken away the judges' chairs and others were standing on the table.
Soon the music being juggled was stopped as there was a sudden rush to the stage area and the area provided for the judges offered no view to the stage. A sudden disagreement between the organisers and the patrons brewed as the patrons refused to get behind the judges' desk, which was not barricaded away from the general audience space. And even with the threat of the event being cancelled, the patrons would not budge. This stand-off between the patrons and the organisers lasted well over forty-five minutes before a little order was restored.
The sound system started playing again and the patrons were becoming weary as none of the seven teams in the cheerleading competition was yet to take the stage. Soon it was reported that some of the teams could not enter the venue because the back gate designated for their entry was blocked.
CHAOS
The chaos soon got even uglier when hundreds of patrons 'bomb rushed' the gates, tore down sections of the fence and began streaming into the venue. The event was put on hold again for almost an hour as the organisers deliberated on whether or not to continue with the proceedings. During this time some of the speaker boxes had to be relocated because of the threat of being toppled by the aggressive crowd.
After a long wait a beat rang from the speakers and the crowd went berserk, the emcee took the stage and announced that the event would begin in exactly 5 minutes, but later returned to say that he got orders to lock off everything. The crowd did not like this and vented their anger verbally.
At minutes to 9 p.m. the competition started with the introduction of the Faculty of Building cheerleading team, much to the delight of the huge crowd.
The competition was good and featured some nail-biting performances, though not free of misfortune. In the end the School of Business Administration came out on top and the on-the-spot ambulance had to be utilised to transport an injured cheerleader.
The teams were the Faculty of the Building Environment, School of Computing and Information Technology, School of Science, Engineering, School of Business Administration, School of Hotel and Tourism Management and Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies.
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