TINLEY PARK, Ill. — Hundreds of fans missed a large portion of a highly anticipated concert that happened at a venue in Tinley Park Saturday.
Ludacris and Janet Jackson helped kick off the summer concert season at Credit Union One Amphitheater Saturday night, but getting into the building turned into a nightmare for many there.
“In 30 years, I’ve never had an issue until Saturday night,” said Jim Ryan.
According to Ryan, he hit a local bar on the way to the show Saturday night, assuming he had plenty of time to kill before the concert. Instead, it took him and his friends two-and-a-half hours to get there, and they missed most of the show.
“It’s on 183rd Street, 1.3 miles from the venue,” Ryan said of the bar he was at. “We walked out of there at 7:30 and sat down at the venue at 10:03 … [Janet Jackson] shut down at 10:45.”
Photos from the event showed traffic backed up in every direction. In most cases, cars sat in the street for hours, with no where to go.
“We sat there basically not moving,” Ryan said. “At one point I got out of the car, crossed the street and went into a bar to use the bathroom, came back out, and the car hadn’t moved.”
“People were screaming at each other, it was just a bad vibe,” said Liana Davila, who ended up getting creative and decided to walk 1.5 miles to catch the second half of the show. “It just kind of put a damper on things because people were so frustrated from sitting in their car for so long.”
Credit Union One Amphitheater released a statement afterward that read, in part:
“We understand that the traffic delays and parking issues on Saturday night were incredibly frustrating for fans. Our team has already proactively connected with fans who entered the building after the start of the headliner.”
According to venue officials, they were able to accommodate every car that arrived and did not run out of parking, while also encouraging fans to show up early through free ticket promotion offers, emails, phone calls and social media posts.
It is unclear if and how fans will be compensated for missing the concert.