We've shown you a tour of the inside, and today, Torontonians will get a chance to take a look at the ROM's new addition themselves following the free street concert tonight on Bloor Street.
First-come, first-served timed tickets will be allocated starting at noon for admission into the empty Crystal, and admission is free until tomorrow. The public will be allowed into the ROM's empty new galleries until June 10, when the Museum begins installation of the permanent collection. Tickets will be available at the south entrance with the red awning beside the former McLaughlin Planetarium.
The street concert is standing-room-only and begins at 8 p.m. on Bloor Street in front of the ROM and will run for about 75-minutes, wrapping-up with a light show finale featuring composer David Foster as part of the Luminato festival. Performers will include Deborah Cox, K'naan, Natalie McMaster, and opera star Isabel Bayrakdarian, with the evening hosted by Paul Gross and appearances by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean, David Suzuki, Michael Lee-Chin and architect Daniel Libeskind.
Photo by Olemang from the Torontoist Flickr pool.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
LuminaTO festival wraps up? It's just getting started :)
Sorry, I meant the concert wraps up as part of Luminato! I fixed that.
David Foster? Ah, best excuse *not* to go. And a better reason to hate, despise, abhor the Crystal than *any* architectural/heritage/bread-not-circuses arguments out there. I was prepared to like the Crystal; until I read that David Foster was involved in the unveiling ceremonies. Now, it's EVIL. David Foster must die. Violently. ;-)))))))))))
I would like to apologize to any Torontonians who I accidentally hit with my bike tonight, along Bloor, as I was trying to walk it through the concert crowd (which, needless to say, I quickly realized was a HORRIBLE idea) with my non-biking friends who were attempting to clear a space for me. I felt like a big douche.
Who's idea was it to have those bleacher seats installed on Bloor? It meant that anyone walking on Bloor behind the bleachers couldn't see anything and found themselves stuck in a wall of people. Whoever the event planner was should be fired. What an incredibly stupid idea for a street festival that is supposed to be for the citizens of Toronto.
I mean, the ROM has one chance for a big, splashy opening!! The night ended way too early, the bleachers were a horrible idea since they put a barrier between the show and the people on the street, the show was too conservative and the ROM should have gotten some bigger names to perform. There should have been a big street party on Bloor after the show with music, dancing, artwork. It should have been a spectacular, blow-you-away, big bang party. Instead it ended on a whimper.
I'd like to repeat that whoever oversaw this opening should never be allowed to put on a festival of this magnitude again. It was badly orchestrated.
Toronto goes for the Bronze once again.
Better luck next time... (It's all on you now, AGO)
I totally agree about the huge bleachers takining up most of the street, though a single VIP area would have been fine. The part I was most disappointed with was the cringeworthy "humour" in the between-performance sketches with Paul Gross and Seán Cullen. Totally unfunny and unnecessary, and it was a bit excruciating to make David Suzuki play along instead of just speaking.
I didn't think the performances were too bad...the place looked great all lit-up and the staging and production design looked good. The David Foster finale was a fromage-fest, with that Olympics/We Are The World-type song ("There's nothing we can't buiiiiild!")
It was interesting to see which acts people really applauded like crazy for...the Canadian Tenors, M'Girl and Dione Taylor/Toronto Faith Chorale.
God, Sean Cullen was there?
I totally agree with Dan about the crowd logistics - that was perhaps the most asinine event setup I've ever seen, and was not only ineffective for 2/3 of the people who showed up, but downright dangerous - there were people standing in oncoming traffic on Avenue, there was a crush of people behind the bleachers, absolutely NO consideration that maybe, just maybe, in metropolitan area of 3 million, more than two thousand people MIGHT show up for a free concert on a Friday night. I shudder to think what might have happened if someone in that crowd had panicked, or had a heart attack, or fired off a gun . . . It was really only one incident away from being front page news and a memorable evening for all the wrong reasons. Event organizers should be ashamed (and fired) for putting the public in such a precarious situation.
I agree with the comments about the stage and bleachers layout and set up. On the north side of Bloor, The Intercontinental hotel roped off part of the sidewalk and between that and the bleachers it was like funnelling the 401 onto Kensington Ave. Some people started pushing but for the most part people stayed cool.
We did get tickets to go into the ROM for 2:30 and it was great inside.
a more realistic solution for the set up was to no have bleachers at all... The VIPs had their party at the ROM the night before, let the masses have some cake too!
Meanwhile, the cameras and such could have easily been banished to the rooftops of the facing buildings. Was the event even televised... and if yes... why?
sigh...