To those who get upset when a pit opens, please stop creating dangerous situation
When a mosh pit is forming and members of the crowd resist letting it open to the appropriate size you are putting everyone in danger in and outside of the pit.
I saw this happen at simple plan tonight. The pit flag has been waved for about 5 minutes beforehand and we got a decent group of people in the area before attempting to open. Once we did there was a resistance in the crowd and they kept trying to retake the space from us. I saw multiple instance of people verbally arguing with pit members over this and even nearly a physical fight.
This is when the pit started to get a bit more intense. People start ramming into the sides, some on purpose to get it to open, some accidentally because there’s just not enough space for all of us. Then all the big dudes that have been seeing bands like Paleface and Blessthefall all day go HELL YEAH this pit is getting good! So it gets even more intense.
So now, everyone in the pit expecting light skanking is in a cramped space getting swung on, and everyone around the sides is getting demolished in waves. This went on escalating until someone opened a second pit about 10-20 feet away and started coaxing people over.
We had a lot better luck with crowd attitude here, even though the location was barely different, but this was the heaviest simple plan pit I have ever seen, and I’ve seen these dudes a lot. I’m not saying I didn’t have fun, just to be clear, I was in heavier pits all day but the anger kill was killing the vibe. But if the crowd in the beginning had just taken those ten steps back and let us do our thing it would have been a light and fun pop punk pit, they wouldnt have been getting pushed, we’d have had room to dance, and instead it was like 5 songs of everyone getting more and more angry.
Most crowds were great, but people need to learn not to expect the crowd for your ‘soft’ band to be the same as when they are playing alone. The dang VILLAGE PEOPLE have had insane pits playing at festivals, it’s gonna happen at bands you don’t expect. But not all pits are like, Knocked Loose… if the band is light we usually just wanna dance. Please, let us dance.
Image from the Health & Safety FAQ on the official website. So even if you disagree then you need to take it up with the festival, not take it upon yourself to police others doing things they are allowed to do. It might not be how you enjoy the show, but there is room for all of us to have a fun and safe time. Please be respectful of people who enjoy themselves differently than you, your view really won’t change much if you step to the left or right a bit.