I haven't told the Johnny Depp story yet!
That's actually how I categorize it in my head, I've told it so many times.
We say it often, how the festival has grown. During any given TIFF, it's not unusual to see Yonge St (Canada's busiest street) closed down between Shuter St. and Queen St. to help facilitate guest arrivals. Barricades are set up to close down traffic both ways on Yonge St. allowing in only designated vehicles, as well barricades are set up along the sidewalk so that pedestrians cannot cross or wander into the private traffic areas. (It's actually quite a production and every year we get a LOT of angry, frustrated pedestrians)
This wasn't always the case, in the early 2000's there was nothing but good manners to keep onlookers standing back. I guess with traffic going both ways on Yonge St. it would only make sense to stand on the west sidewalk across from the Elgin to get a glimpse of the stars (we also used to have an area for the autograph hounds - but again, long gone) as any closer and you'd get hit by a car.
The night Johnny Depp was scheduled to attend, the crowds on the west sidewalk swelled to hundreds of onlookers. We eyed them apprehensively but went on to do our duties as usual. The task at hand was to open up the stanchions and form a human barrier when Mr. Depp's car arrived. That went as planned, Mr. Depp stepped out and gave the crowd a friendly greeting.
Then we see one girl call his name and go running blindly across Yonge St... and 300 people followed.
Thank god they were Torontoians, in many other parts of the world I feel like I would've been trampled. Even then the crowd pressed against us and I recall one woman try to crawl beneath our arms, we asked her to stop or else we'd have to notify the paid duty officer. Luckily she was just caught up in the excitement and quickly complied.
In the years that followed, we began seeing more and more barricades for high profile films.
No comments:
Post a Comment