Madonna concert in August may close off airspace over Jätkäsaari

Former dockland area would be large enough for a crowd of 200,000

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The concert by Madonna in Helsinki in August will not only stir up the fans of the singer, but will also affect the normal rhythm of the entire city.
      When Madonna plays at the new venue of Jätkäsaari, a former dockland site in the West Harbour, the surrounding sea area and the airspace over the site will be closed for the duration of the gig, at least if promoters Live Nation have their way.
     
The concert area is on a headland jutting out into the sea, and Live Nation are planning to apply for an order to close off the sea-area from Lauttasaari Bridge to the west around to the West Harbour Terminal in the east.
      This is in order to prevent the thousands of Helsinki boat-owners from taking up an anchored position just offshore with a free view of the proceedings.
     
Closing airspace for a pop concert is practically unheard of in the Finnish experience, but for Madonna it may be a possibility.
      Normally such regulations are only put into effect for state security reasons, for example at major summits or EU ministerial meetings.
      However, both applications have been given a cautious provisional green light, although no formal documents have been submitted by the promoters as yet.
     
The Jätkäsaari site, covering roughly 500 metres by 500 metres, would be large enough to accommodate a genuinely massive crowd of 200,000, but for security reasons it was deemed necessary to limit the numbers to 80,000 - already making this the largest gig ever held in this country.
      The record is likely to stand for some time, as Jätkäsaari is the only place in Finland where a concert on this scale could conceivably be organised.
      Furthermore, the venue itself is not going to be around for very long: in a couple of years' time the former dock area will be a giant construction site for urban redevelopment, with offices and apartments going up.
     
Madonna and entourage will be arriving with a huge stage carried by a fleet of 100 or so trucks. The tour arrives here from Estonia and heads on to Gothenburg in Sweden.
      It is highly likely that the concert will fill the city’s hotels and will thoroughly jam up traffic in the city centre.
     
Car parking spaces in the immediate vicinity of Jätkäsaari are practically non-existent, so most will have to walk the two kilometres from the city centre and the main railway station, using the route of the old harbour railway branch-line.
      The tracks will be torn up before August comes around.
      It is thought unlikely that special bus services will be laid on.
      Traffic problems are likely to be at their worst in the area immediately around the concert venue, and there are already concerns that there will in practice only be one entrance and exit route. This is likely to become a humungous bottleneck.
     
The concert tickets were sold in a matter of hours on Monday (see separate story).
      It will be a general admission concert with no numbered seating, but three classes of tickets were on sale.
      The greatest demand was unsurprisingly for the 4,000 front-of-stage places and the 10,000 places in the B section immediately behind this.
      Those holding the remaining 66,000 tickets will either need sharp elbows or an early start to get anywhere near the 80-metre wide stage, and will probably be dependent on what they can see from giant video screens on each side.
      There is, however, no fear of not being able to hear anything - Madonna comes equipped with a comprehensive P.A. system that can probably stun an elephant at 100 metres.

More on this subject:
 Sales glitches once again a source of anguish as 80,000 tickets go in three hours

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Madonna to play in Helsinki in August (30.1.2009)

Links:
  Madonna (official site)

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