Last night (March 8th), local authorities halted the performance of emo/pop-punk band JOYCE MANOR, originally scheduled at The Underbelly but relocated to The Prime Osborn Convention Center in Jacksonville, FL, which is hosting the ‘Collective Con’ pop culture convention this weekend. PORCH COFFIN and GLAZED opened for JOYCE MANOR.
According to reports from attendees, venue security intervened due to stage diving and moshing fans, even positioning themselves onstage to discourage such behavior. Despite efforts to manage the situation, police were eventually called to end the performance and disperse the audience, resulting in the detention and removal of several concertgoers. Below is some fan-recorded footage of the incident.
A Reddit user claiming to have been present at the event recounted the scene from last night as follows:
convention center clearly didn’t research before agreeing to move the show to their building. had who is assuming was an event organizer come on stage 5 mins into the set and tell everyone to stop moshing/crowd surfing so we could “have a safe show” to which people booed and cursed him off stage. few mins later they planted a security guard in the middle of the stage to throw people off if they got on stage to dive/crowd surf. ended up forcefully escorting a few off stage.
minutes later the band announced the fire marshall was shutting the show down. i left pretty soon after that because i could tell it was gonna be bad news if i hung around, but my friends and i walked outside to what had to be at LEAST 10-13 cop cars lit up. that’s when the arrests started happening and a whole army attacking a bunch of kids who did nothing wrong. imagine going to see your favorite band and walking out in cuffs for having a good time.
the osborn center encouraged police brutality tonight (also the only arrests i saw were people of color, no surprise there. holds up for jacksonville police.) and called law enforcement for NOTHING. huge shame on them for being so unprepared, impatient and judgmental. kinda scared what the outcome was for JM. wonder if they got in trouble.”
