What was the Glow-Stick Project?
It started out as a whimsical little suggestion by Glyn on prince.org. People wanted to find some way of sending a big thank-you to Prince for his record-setting run of shows at London's O2 Arena in 2007. The suggestion was that fans should bring purple glowsticks to the final night, and light them up during Purple Rain. Sections of the Arena would then simultaneously light up purple. Wouldn't that be nice?
To our surprise, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea. So I stupidly volunteered to try and turn it into reality.
We discovered that by buying in bulk, we could get glowsticks very cheaply. So we bought six hundred, and hatched a complex plan to distribute them.
Now, if you attended any of the O2 gigs, you'll know that security was tight. Absolutely no exchanging of tickets for cash was tolerated (preventing touting, but also causing immense problems for anyone with "spares" - I lost £70 thanks to this policy), bags were searched on entry, cameras had to be surrendered, and you could get ejected rapidly from the show if you even got your mobile out of your pocket.
So we anticipated that getting glowsticks into the arena could be difficult. I mean, we weren't taking just one each, because we were planning to hand them out to other concert-goers, to maximise the effect. Some people were planning to hide 20 or more on their person. In the end, we worked out a distribution plan of military complexity, communicated via this web site, and managed to hand out all 600. Here we go.
So, what happens as we're entering the main arena doors? All 20,000 ticket holders are being handed a copy of the Planet Earth CD and... you guessed it... a purple glow-stick! Not that surprisingly, Prince or his people had heard what we were up to. Surprisingly, they seemed to think it was a good idea.
So, instead of 600 purple glowsticks, there were 20,000 of them. The arena was lit up like a giant purple christmas tree from the very start. Shame we didn't get to spring our surprise, but the effect was spectacular. And you could tell where the biggest fans were, because they still waited until Purple Rain to light theirs.
For posterity, here's a few pictures from this minor footnote in rock history. Thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm, and thanks to Prince and the entire band for 21 nights of mind-blowing gigs - especially the IndigO2 aftershows. Those were the best gigs I've been to in my life. What a fantastic summer it was.
- Popelife
Cameraphone picture by prince.org member 'DeSteen'
Not breaking any copyright, because there's no symbol, no Prince, no band...
