Spice Girls’ Coventry gig sees furious fans complain of overcrowding and being left stranded in a car park for hours outside the Ricoh Arena
ANGRY Spice Girls fans have complained after overcrowding at their Coventry gig last night left them stranded in a car park.
The unforgiving fans took to social media to vent at Ricoh Arena's "abysmal organisation", poor crowd control and bad traffic management leaving the venue.
While many die hard followers of Spice Girl's Mel Brown, 43, Geri Horner, 46, Mel C, 45, and Emma Bunton, 43, were on still on a high after reliving their childhood at the Midlands leg of the reunion tour, they revealed they would never return to the arena following their ordeal.
In a lengthy post one fumed: "There aren't enough words to sufficiently describe the incompetence of @RicohArena at tonight's Spice Girls concert. Hours of queueing to get in for them to eventually give up on security checks completely, and then no food to buy so have gone without dinner."
She continued: "The crush and disorganization at the turnstiles was so bad I had a panic attack and had to be rushed inside by the staff. Not fun. Thanks for nothing @RicohArena."
Before adding over an hour later: "Still waiting to get out of the carpark. If you're planning on seeing The Spice Girls tomorrow night in Cov - my advice for you is not to bother. As good as they are, it's not safe at Ricoh Arena and it'll take you hours to get out."
While another added: "A huge issue following last night’s #SpiceGirls concert at @RicohArena was the abysmal organisation on leaving the venue. It took us an hour and a half to find a taxi, with huge queues still waiting for one at the point we left. I wouldn’t go to the Ricoh again.
A third said: "No it’s OK @RicohArena I didn’t really want to see @JessGlynne & would much rather be stuck in a bun fight of a queue whilst listening to her from outside!! Complete joke, no Arena staff managing the queues, people pushing in everywhere #shambles."
And a fourth chimed in: "@RicohArena the organisation before, during and after the Spice Girls gig in Coventry last night was nothing short of appalling. I thought we were going to miss the gig for queuing and then have to spend the night in a car park we were literally trapped in @RicohArena."
Meanwhile, another told The Sun: "They didn’t do a bag check on us and didn’t even check our tickets. Anyone and I mean anyone could have walked in!
"And yet again due to having no barriers in place to filter people in an orderly fashion, groups of people just pushed to the front and it was accepted and watched by staff. Finally after another 20minutes and now 20:05 we had missed Jess Glynn we were in the arena!!!!"
They added: "As a result of the hours of chaos we were of course towards the back of the standing section, we couldn’t hear the singing from the Spice Girls but could hear the music."
Although, it seems that the chaos had already begun before many fans had even reached the venue, after a HGV collided with a coach full of fans near Leeds on the M62.
Excited revellers were left stranded on the motorway as they awaited permission to continue with their journey's.
"Absolutely love been stranded on the m62 on the way to spice girls because a lorry has hit the back of our coach deffo gonna miss half the concert now," tweeted an upset passenger.
But, it turns out that the affected coach was actually going the wrong direction and was headed to Manchester rather than Coventry.
The passenger added: "And best of all driver thought we was going to Manchester and the concert is in Coventry so we’re still 2 hours away."
This isn't the first time that the band have experienced complaints from fans, after their opening concert in Dublin left upset ticket buyers demanding refunds, after they struggled to hear the music properly.
Trying to put the angry fans at ease, Mel B insisted that the sound quality would improve at the band's next tour date in Cardiff.
Scary Spice filmed a candid video from her bed, admitting things could have been better and vowed to right the issues when the group play Cardiff on Monday.
She said: "Hey guys, thank you for attending our show tonight in Dublin. We will see you in Cardiff and hopefully the sound and vocals will be much much better."
However, upset fans who had paid between £66 and £146 to see the band's return, took to Twitter following the concert to vent about the unimproved sound.
One person wrote: “Okay so @spicegirls was so much fun however the sound was atrocious and you could not hear what they actually said! So disappointing when you pay soo much for a once in a life time opportunity.”
"@spicegirls not much better in Cardiff... The sound was awful again.. What a way to spend money! #refundplease,” tweeted another."
Following last night's incident, the Ricoh Arena have released a statement ensuring fans that they are putting the correct measures in place to prevent the same happening at tonight's show.
They said: “The first night of the Spice Girls was a fantastic occasion. We opened up additional entrances to get people through as quickly as possible but with security checks and it being a mid-week date, we would urge people to get to the venue as early as possible.
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"We have turned the majority of gents toilets into female loos, have hired additional portable toilets and also put on added additional facilities.
"We will be debriefing ahead of tonight’s concert to see if changes are needed.”
The Spice Girls will return to Coventry this evening, before heading to Sunderland on Thursday.
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