The chaotic behind the splendour of ‘Hanebu Sauyun’ Concert

(Surakarta, 29 September 2023) The Edutorium of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta was flooded with more than 10,000 visitors. Visitors come from various circles, both from UMS students and the surrounding citizen who want to see the appearance at this event. It’s because the Alumni Association of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta is holding a grand reunion entitled “Hanebu Sauyun”. because the Alumni Association of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta is holding a grand reunion event entitled “Hanebu Sauyun Concert”. Visitors began to crowd the area around the edutorium since 17.00 WIB in the afternoon while the event started at 19.00 WIB.

The event, which took place on Friday 29 September 2023, was enlivened by several performances such as performances by 3 bands, dance performances by 6 dance groups, 1 violin talent, Al Kindi vocal UKM, and also invited guest Mbak Asri, and the guest star who attracted the most audience was Denny Caknan.

The event began with remarks from the core committee and continued with interesting performances, many people were happy that the event was taking place, but there were also many people who complained about the stuffy place, the people who came exceeded the capacity of the venue, there was a commotion both at the ticket check and during the concert.

This was directly confirmed by one of the attendees who also felt the excitement as the concert took place at the UMS Edutorium venue.

Karisma Azahra, one of the people who attended the concert, admitted that the event was a bit chaotic.

“It was chaotic when I was standing, actually when a dangdut concert is enjoyable to stand, but I was told to sit down, so the visitors finally rebelled, when Denny Caknan came out and performed, they all stood up immediately”. Said Karisma Azahra, an audience member at Hanebu Sauyun’s concert.

The audience who had entered the venue were instructed by the event committee to remain seated during the concert. However, the time for the main star of the concert, Denny Caknan, was approaching. Many people got angry because many people stood up and blocked the view of other people who were sitting during the event, while at that time the event rundown was still quite long considering that the main guest star, Denny Caknan, had not yet appeared. As soon as the host announced that the main star of the concert, Denny Caknan, was going to perform, the atmosphere in the audience got out of hand. The previously seated audience were forced to stand up as they were pushed by the crowd spilling out of the auditorium.

In this event, of course, all the committees took part in the success of this event, but from some of what was seen from the audience that exceeded the capacity of the venue from the committee’s estimates, it made them overwhelmed to overcome it, especially when at the entrance of the visitors who were increasingly arriving, making the committee forced to close the entrance, but because there were visitors who had paid and did not accept the closing of the entrance, there was a riot in front of which other visitors were provoked, and by force all the committees and police who helped immediately opened the door again and directed all visitors.

Apart from that, what needs to be questioned is the distribution of tickets from the committee which makes a mismatch with the seats in the building, but the response from the committee admits that it intends to invite as many spectators as possible, in other words, there is no specific target or limit.

“There is no target, talking about the desired concert with as many visitors as possible, a concert that must have a purpose, such as this concert aims to strengthen alumni ties and convey the advantages of this concert to many people, the more visitors the more messages will be conveyed” said one of the organising committee.

From the number of people who came, the committee did intend to invite many audiences from various circles for this event. However, the drawback of this is that the capacity of the venue is not comparable to the overflowing audience, resulting in the committee being overwhelmed and chaotic in handling the audience who exceeded the capacity of the UMS edutorium venue. The uncontrolled number of spectators also resulted in several spectators who fell, fainting due to lack of oxygen considering the condition of the edutorium which was crowded by the audience until the exit of the edutorium. Luckily, the committee had collaborated with the nearby PKU Muhammadiyah to handle the health issues of all parties involved with the ‘Hanebu Sauyun’ concert event during the event. Spectators who fainted were immediately handled by the committee in the health field.

There were some audience members who protested about the uneven distribution of free tickets and the existence of ticket scalpers, but the committee’s response regarding the distribution of free tickets to each faculty of Muhammadiyah University Surakarta was that the demand from each faculty was different, but regarding the issue of ticket scalpers for this concert, the committee itself did not provide a response. Regarding the scalpers, many people saw that the scalpers had sold tickets given by the campus and people in the event building under the pretext of buying tickets that were supposed to be free, but were sold to other parties at a higher price.

From some of the shortcomings that occurred at the ‘Hanebu Sauyun’ concert, it gave rise to hopes from Karisma Azahra as a visitor to the event that was held, “I think in the future if you want to hold an event like this again, a concert that is like this and needs a larger capacity is better in the open space, not in a building like this, many fainted, their asthma flared up like that.”

Expectations for this event may be a lot from the venue, which should be outdoors, or a place indoors but with a capacity that is appropriate to the circumstances of the place being used, to avoid overcrowding or chaos in the entry queue, and also to adjust the distribution of tickets and seating in the event.

Writer : Rizaldy (Economic Development ’22)

Reporter : Ditamel (Economic Development ’22), Kenya (Civil Engineering ’21), Salwa (Management [International Programme] ’22), Fadiya (Communication Science ’20)