When is a sell out crowd not a sell out crowd?

Plus MPs doing the right thing, independence for Hoo, blackface, and more.

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When is a sell out crowd not a sell out crowd?

Libertines @libertines

𝙰 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚁𝚘𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜 ❤️ 📷 @cristinamassei

Last week saw the return of the Castle Concerts to Rochester, following a tumultuous period which saw Medway Council withdrawing their support for them and shunting them over to a private sector provider. Oh, and then there was that whole covid thing too.

It was perhaps understandable that new promoters AGMP opted for a fairly safe lineup of events, with typical Castle Concerts fare UB40 and Soul II Soul joining the only slightly (and I mean slightly) interesting choice of The Libertines.

One of the problems with this new private sector structuring of the concerts is despite their significant impact on Rochester for a few days, we have little way of gauging their success. From a typically sycophantic article on Kent Online earlier this week, the new promoters don’t seem particularly inclined to talk about the reality:

By the time the Libertines took to the stage that night, a euphoric atmosphere had engulfed the castle gardens, with a near-capacity crowd of 3,950 fans enjoying a typically riotous set.

The following nights headlined by Soul II Soul and UB40 brought sell-out crowds of 4,500, according to AGMP, which by the end of the weekend were able to celebrate a successful return.

Now I don’t know about you, but usually if I see the words ‘sell-out’ and ‘crowd’ next to each other like that, I tend to think that an event had actually sold out. Which seems rather at odds with the fact the promoters ended up giving away significant numbers of tickets away for free to bulk out the crowd. Subscribers to the ShowFilmFirst mailing list were offered free tickets to both the Libertines and Soul II Soul nights, with the explicit caveat that they not tell anyone about the offer: