Mariah Carey was supposed to switch on the Westfield Christmas lights today at 6pm so I thought that getting there for 5 should be plenty of time to get a spot to see her. Boy was I wrong. I got to Westfield about 4.45 and by then it was pretty much packed. Most areas where you could stand to see her were already at least three if not four people deep. I managed to get a spot on the first floor looking down on the stage but still behind quite a few peole.
For about an hour or so, with time dragging really slowly, until just about 5.45 it was relatively civilized, no one was pushing, no one was shoving. Security had actually closed off our area with a reasonable amount of people however, come close rot show time, as much as security tried to stop people coming in there was no way they were going to be able to stop a mass number of people hoping the small wall that bordered the area. By the time 6pm rolled around there was a wall of people behind and above me.
Surprisingly most of the people around me were teens or college kids and they were not above creating havoc.
Slowly people started to get really pushy. Next to me one girl was so pushy that two people in front of her actually left – and considering they’d been standing waiting for Mariah for about two hours you know she had to have been really annoying. And then directly in front of me a fight nearly broke out between two women. I couldn’t understand why because they’d been fine for the hour or plus I’d been standing there but obviously something happened to trigger the tension.
In true diva style Miss Mariah Carey was an hour late coming to the stage. She seemed like a really lovely person but I don’t know why she has to act so ditzy. Anyway, she did her little twirl, swung her magic wand and the lights were switched on. It lasted about all of three minutes!
She left the stage but did return about 30 minutes later to start signing her albums and take photos with the lucky few who had won a competition. Of course she was wearing sunnies.
I read somewhere that she’d asked for real live butterflies to be a part of the switch-on! There was a compromise with paper butterflies. These were littered everywhere outside!
Seeing Mariah switch on the lights at Westfield was a rather stressful experience. Glad I did it though!
