dsmith2904
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Bono and Oprah and The Gap Make Fans Wait and Freeze for Nothing
Ed. Note: Get pictures of the Chicago Gap event from The Halting Point and Yahoo!
As part of The Gap's PRODUCT(RED) campaign, they arranged for Bono and Oprah to make an appearance at The Gap on the corner of Ohio and Michigan Ave. here in Chicago. According to the press release, (RED), the organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver, seeks to marry charity with consumer spending power, harnessing many international brands in their fight against AIDS in Africa. Some of the other companies participating in this are Converse, Emporio Armani and Motorola.
The campaign site features the entire range of PRODUCT(RED) albeit in an agonizingly slow slideshow format. Although to be fair it is October 12th right now, and their website says the line will be available October 13th. I saw the crowd of people on the way to work on the 151 this morning, so I stopped by and said that Oprah and Bono should be showing up at 9-9:15....at 9:15 I decided it was too damn cold and went to work. Went out again at 10 and there were even MORE people there. Both sides of the street were packed, as was the median in the road. As you can see from the pictures, there was quite a bit of space between my crowd of people I was standing in and the red carpet. It wasn't initially that bad when I first showed up at 9...we were right at the carpet, but then they kept pushing us back and back and back, and set up blockades.
Did I mention that during this time Chicago was in the midst of receiving its first flakes of snow of the year? Then, to add insult to freezing injury, a group of young too-trendy looking people show up all dressed in red with jackets on. Must be the gap employees. They of course got to line up about a foot away from the entrance and completely blocked any view we would have had. We then got to sit through some rousing fake cheers from the gap employees directed by the Harpo crew. Least we all got a good chuckle out of how fake it was. Although I admit I feel bad for some of those people because Harpo made them remove their jackets to get good footage, even though there were blistering winds.
Then, after about another 45 minutes of waiting, people start cheering as a Mercedes with its hazard lights on comes down the street and stops at the corner. Its Bono. He gets out and walks back to the red Thunderbird right behind him to open the driver's side door and lets out the big O. Although she wasn't that big. I'm not one to follow celebs, but Oprah looked pretty damn thin. The more amazing part of that though was that she was ACTUALLY DRIVING. Although I'm sure her "people" just had her driver get out of the car and swap seats with her at Illinois and Michigan. Can't leave things like that to chance now can we!
There was much cheering and then 5 seconds later it ended as Oprah and Bono promptly walked into the store, leaving the many fans, some of whom had been waiting for 2 hours to see them, standing slack-jawed in the freezing cold and flurries.
Did they need to push the fans back that far? Certainly not. Was it unfair for the Gap people to be right up front completely blocking the views of people who had been waiting for an hour or more? Most definitely.
When I left they were setting up a microphone stand and said that they would be speaking, but it would be a bit later, probably in more than an hour and they had no real idea when.
While I am all in favor of the promotion, which donates 50% of the PRODUCT(RED) proceeds to fight AIDS in Africa, I have to say that Harpo and The Gap really screwed over the fans on this one, making them wait in freezing weather for upwards of 2 hours just in order to get a 5 second glimpse of Bono and Oprah...if their view wasn't completely obstructed by The Gap employees. And for those thinking I should have been on the other side of the street, well, that wouldn't have been any better since there was a wall of news crews and massive camera rigs lining the edge of the sidewalk, preventing any reasonable view at all. The only good spot was on the median which looked like a bunch of castaways clinging to a life raft due to how many people were trying to crowd on there.
I asked if they would be coming back out to speak since there was a mic platform set up with all the news station mics, but they said it probably wouldn't be for another 45 minutes, if not an hour or more. Not really worth sticking around for with the weather like that. What a disappointment.
--The Halting Point
Ed. Note: Get pictures of the Chicago Gap event from The Halting Point and Yahoo!
As part of The Gap's PRODUCT(RED) campaign, they arranged for Bono and Oprah to make an appearance at The Gap on the corner of Ohio and Michigan Ave. here in Chicago. According to the press release, (RED), the organization founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver, seeks to marry charity with consumer spending power, harnessing many international brands in their fight against AIDS in Africa. Some of the other companies participating in this are Converse, Emporio Armani and Motorola.
The campaign site features the entire range of PRODUCT(RED) albeit in an agonizingly slow slideshow format. Although to be fair it is October 12th right now, and their website says the line will be available October 13th. I saw the crowd of people on the way to work on the 151 this morning, so I stopped by and said that Oprah and Bono should be showing up at 9-9:15....at 9:15 I decided it was too damn cold and went to work. Went out again at 10 and there were even MORE people there. Both sides of the street were packed, as was the median in the road. As you can see from the pictures, there was quite a bit of space between my crowd of people I was standing in and the red carpet. It wasn't initially that bad when I first showed up at 9...we were right at the carpet, but then they kept pushing us back and back and back, and set up blockades.
Did I mention that during this time Chicago was in the midst of receiving its first flakes of snow of the year? Then, to add insult to freezing injury, a group of young too-trendy looking people show up all dressed in red with jackets on. Must be the gap employees. They of course got to line up about a foot away from the entrance and completely blocked any view we would have had. We then got to sit through some rousing fake cheers from the gap employees directed by the Harpo crew. Least we all got a good chuckle out of how fake it was. Although I admit I feel bad for some of those people because Harpo made them remove their jackets to get good footage, even though there were blistering winds.
Then, after about another 45 minutes of waiting, people start cheering as a Mercedes with its hazard lights on comes down the street and stops at the corner. Its Bono. He gets out and walks back to the red Thunderbird right behind him to open the driver's side door and lets out the big O. Although she wasn't that big. I'm not one to follow celebs, but Oprah looked pretty damn thin. The more amazing part of that though was that she was ACTUALLY DRIVING. Although I'm sure her "people" just had her driver get out of the car and swap seats with her at Illinois and Michigan. Can't leave things like that to chance now can we!
There was much cheering and then 5 seconds later it ended as Oprah and Bono promptly walked into the store, leaving the many fans, some of whom had been waiting for 2 hours to see them, standing slack-jawed in the freezing cold and flurries.
Did they need to push the fans back that far? Certainly not. Was it unfair for the Gap people to be right up front completely blocking the views of people who had been waiting for an hour or more? Most definitely.
When I left they were setting up a microphone stand and said that they would be speaking, but it would be a bit later, probably in more than an hour and they had no real idea when.
While I am all in favor of the promotion, which donates 50% of the PRODUCT(RED) proceeds to fight AIDS in Africa, I have to say that Harpo and The Gap really screwed over the fans on this one, making them wait in freezing weather for upwards of 2 hours just in order to get a 5 second glimpse of Bono and Oprah...if their view wasn't completely obstructed by The Gap employees. And for those thinking I should have been on the other side of the street, well, that wouldn't have been any better since there was a wall of news crews and massive camera rigs lining the edge of the sidewalk, preventing any reasonable view at all. The only good spot was on the median which looked like a bunch of castaways clinging to a life raft due to how many people were trying to crowd on there.
I asked if they would be coming back out to speak since there was a mic platform set up with all the news station mics, but they said it probably wouldn't be for another 45 minutes, if not an hour or more. Not really worth sticking around for with the weather like that. What a disappointment.
--The Halting Point
