UPDATE: It seems like at least part of the delay was due to the fact that one of the main performers was mistaken as a wino and detained by security. Gotta love Philly!
Yesterday was the last day of the month-long Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (goodbye, backyard trapeze artists). For the grand finale, the French acrobat/musical troupe La Compagnie Transe Express put on a free outdoor show right outside our building - I was pretty pumped about it since there was a lot of hype leading up to it, and according to all the posters it would involve lifting a bunch of musicians 100 feet off the ground with a crane for an aerial percussion concert/trapeze act/light show. Ben and I watched them bring in the crane and assemble the giant cage/sideways Ferris wheel thingy on Friday night, and last night made sure to go outside plenty early to get a good spot.
The show was supposed to start at 7:30, and by 7:15 the street was packed. Even though I was standing only about fifty feet from our building's front door, I don't think I could have gone home if I wanted to - it was just wall to wall people. Most people were pretty good-natured about it, but there were a few who tried to shove their way through the crowd and ended up in shouting matches with those who refused to move (or rather, couldn't really move because there was nowhere for them to go). Also, there was a lady not too far ahead of me who seemed to have a claustrophobic freakout, and she sort of went crazy and ran through the crowd (nothing opens up a path like a crazy person) to the fence surrounding the crane, which she promptly jumped so she could sit on the other side and rock back and forth. The crane operator looked like he wanted to tell her she wasn't supposed to be there but couldn't bring himself to approach her, so she spent the rest of the evening in there. Eventually her husband was able to make it over to her, and he stood there really awkwardly and occasionally patting her back.
Anyway, by 7:55 the show still hadn't started and I was afraid the crowd was going to turn ugly, what with everyone being shoved together so tightly and Philly not being renowned for its well-behaved citizens. Some people started climbing onto bus shelters and lamp posts so they could get better views, and others started booing and chanting "start the show! start the show!" I was trying to remember a TV special on how to survive crowd crushes I saw once, because I was afraid I was going to get trampled to death a few yards from my own home. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to stick out your elbows and just try to ride the crowd like a wave, but thankfully it didn't come to that.
Finally, right at 8:00, the show started. Except, since it was a French circus troupe, "starting" meant one guy dressed like a hobo wandered out and started examining the giant cage/Ferris wheel contraption, while making a big show of falling all over himself and talking to the crowd in French. And maybe the crowd would have had the patience for a slow start at 7:30, but they wanted nothing to do with it after half an hour of waiting. When it became clear that it was going to take awhile for anything interesting to happen, the booing and chanting resumed, with the assorted loud person yelling things like "do something interesting!" or "climb up there already!" This continued for about 15-20 minutes, as more performers wandered in and theatrically "discovered" the contraption but didn't actually do much with it. Finally, one of them climbed to the top of it and started ringing a single bell, which temporarily soothed the crowd. Unfortunately, when after several minutes it was still just that one guy ringing his one bell, someone yelled "do something different!", which the crowd promptly began chanting.
Anyway, after about half an hour of build up and increasing crowd unruliness, the performers finally climbed into their contraption, and as soon as the crane lifted it into the air the crowd calmed down and watched the rest of the show peacefully. It ended up being extremely awesome - the thing spun around while expanding and contracting, and in addition to the dangling percussionists there were also several suspended trapeze artists, who did all sorts of impressive swinging and contorting. The Philly Inquirer posted this short video of part of it, which sort of gives you an idea of what it was like but in no way conveys how impressive it really was.
So all in all it was a good day - I got to see an amazing French circus troupe for free, and I did not get trampled to death by impatient Philadelphians. What more could you ask for in life?
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