Manitoban editor is wrangled and confined to a pen

I was an idiot to ask about Fan Fare.

As soon as I stepped into the University of Winnipeg’s Duckworth Centre and saw the wrestler-sized security guards, I should’ve known this meet-and-greet autograph event would be chaperoned.

“Hold it!” yelled a brawny man with long blonde tresses. I froze in mid-step because he made a motion with his hand that I walk away from the stairs and toward a wooden table at which sat a woman wearing a headset. And so I did what any good little journalist would do and turned around to walk toward the woman.

Before I even reached her, she was tapping her finger to a white sheet that rested on the table. I scribbled down my name and the name of the newspaper that I was from. Frowning, she seemed annoyed at my presence, so we didn’t dispense any introductions. “I need a wrangler to the front,” she barked into her microphone, one hand gripping the black wiry curve of her headset.

A wrangler? What the fuck could that mean? I thought.

A 20-something-year-old woman emerged from around a corner that was behind the table. Around her neck dangled a laminate that bore the translucent Juno award image and the words “CTV Crew.” She then escorted me away from the scowling lady and we turned a couple corners until we reached a set of large, blue doors. Opening them revealed the gym, which had 900 orange and blue bleacher seats on the far right wall of the room. The opposite side of the gym had two tables near the front, and the front three quarters of the room was a maze of dark metal gates that fenced fans into rows, which reminded me of the dividers you walk along when you’re waiting in line at the bank. The front tables were where the likes of Finger 11, Billy Talent, Sum 41, Kalan Porter, Great Big Sea and other musicians were going to sit and meet their fans.

Facing each of the sides of the tables that were closest to the walls was a corral that looked like a miniature boxing ring formed from metal barriers; each corral was elevated about a foot and a half off the floor and had plywood flooring.

The woman told me reporters weren’t allowed free range in the gym.

“You can stay in the pens, but if you want to move between the two pens you’ll have to find one of us,” she said.

“Pens?” I muttered. “As in pigpens?” My left eyebrow was now raised, so she spoke again.

“Yes. The pens or whatever you want to call them,” she said trying not to laugh.

Aw shit. I’m at a Juno event and I’m livestock? Wait a fucking minute. Musicians are going to break out the Sharpies to sign breasts, stomachs and T-shirts. Aren’t the rock stars the ones who are supposed to feel like they’re on display? I stared at the journalists and photographers who were vying for positions within each of the pens. Each ring was an undulating collection of steno pads, digital recorders, cameras and bodies.

I acquiesced with a nod. The woman left me as I hopped into the ring and felt the plywood gently tremble beneath my feet.

Soon the fans were herded in and filled the maze of metal fences. The whole time I tried not to get whacked in the face with one of the grey Sony digital TV cameras. While standing there I took a whiff of the air. The scent of potato chips was overpowering.

“That Doritos smell is awful,” said a local TV reporter who stood next to me, her face grimacing as she wiped her wrinkled nose. (Lucky us, Doritos was sponsoring this shindig, and bags of the potent fried morsels were being tossed to the 3,000 or so fans that were lucky enough to win colour-coded wristbands to the event. There were four separate autograph sessions that lasted one hour each and only 500 fans were allowed to each one-hour session.)

And so it hit me: I would be stuck dancing in a pen with other reporters while the people who I actually wanted to talk with were parked at tables and getting writer’s cramp because they would be busy giving away their John Hancocks. FUCK! I’m in a newspaper journalist’s hell.

So for several hours I endured the screaming adolescents as the fragrance of cheese-scented snack food filled my nostrils, and hosts Ace Burpee and John Hendrickson riled up fans by giving away cell phones and I-pods. To kill some time while I endured this music writer’s inferno, I interviewed about a dozen fans who were waiting in line to meet their idols.

“I love Finger 11’s music,” said Curt Hansen, 38, who sported a heavy metal uniform consisting of a black bandana, jeans and a black leather jacket.

“Sum 41 is the best band ever,” said teenager Chelsea Hurd who had waited two hours in line just to meet the pop-punk quartet hailing from Ajax , Ontario .

I didn’t give a rat’s ass about snagging a musician’s autograph. All I wondered about was what kind of guitar pedals Billy Talent’s Ian D’Sa has yet to buy or how many microphones singer Ian Thornley owns. But no — I was trapped in an interviewer’s purgatory, a hell fraught with obnoxious screaming fans and sweaty reporters. I salivated as musicians that I could stare at but couldn’t interrogate were teasing me with their presence alone.

But I really had no one to blame but myself. I knew interview opportunities were not allowed, as was printed in bold black Verdana font in the official Juno media guide. I thought Fan Fare would be paparazzi-like, so I figured it would be amusing to speak to some feral fans. I didn’t think it would mean a 40-person security team would be so tight-assed that I wasn’t allowed to leave the gym without some warden-like escort.

Three and a half hours into my journalistic jail-time and it felt like my bladder was exploding.

“I need to go to the washroom,” I said to a wrangler as I leaned over the side railing.

“I’ll take you,” said a woman who was wearing a headset.

“You’ll take me?” I said in confusion. I was a grown woman, so I didn’t think I needed a baby-sitter. But the wrangler decided to personally whisk me away from the pen and to the washroom. (I’m surprised this roper didn’t want to follow me into the stall while cattle such as myself did my business.)

What the hell did security think I was going to do? Attack Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley with questions if I saw him leaving the washroom? Good grief. This is an autograph session, not the Juno awards telecast!

After my monitored restroom jaunt, I returned to the gym to catch a glimpse of a some of the most recognizable coifs of the current Canadian rock scene such as the Kid ‘n’ Play black flattop of Billy Talent’s Ian D’Sa and the red frizzy afro of the Waking Eyes’ Matt Peters. Following that and my five hours spent in a gym full of several hundred pimply-faced shouting adolescents, I decided my exit from a newsperson’s imprisonment was shamefully overdue.

While I walked out of the gym I decided that next year I should try to win a wristband. And when I finally get to the front of the line I can distract an unsuspecting rocker by flinging a glossy CD cover onto the table, so I could slip in a media question or two. That way I could do some wrangling of my own — rock star wrangling. And that would be a million times better than prancing around like a fool in a media pigpen.

I was an idiot to ask about Fan Fare.