If you’re a star as big as Katy Perry, perhaps you’ll have enough power to close down a whole street.
Well actually, that’s what happened.
In a city like Toronto where mayor Rob Ford considers moving charity events and marathons off the streets because they’re an inconvenience to drivers, Yonge St., one of the city’s main downtown streets, closed for six hours just so the popstar could promote her new perfume, Purr.
Appearing almost an hour and a half late, Perry showed up for about 30 minutes of the closure. Yonge St., from Edward to Richmond Sts, was almost empty for a large part of the time.
“It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense,” said Councillor Doug Holyday, according to an interview with the Toronto Star. “You wonder why it couldn’t have been held somewhere where it wouldn’t block off the street.”
“We’ve got places where some of these sizable events can be held,” he continued, mentioning Nathan Phillips and Yonge-Dundas squares as other options.
Sears, the perfume’s retailer, anticipated 3,000 to 7,000 fans to fill the streets, according to Vincent Power, director of corporate communications.
But with rough estimates from Toronto police and Eaton Centre security, the closure only drew about 1,500.
So a bit of an exaggeration?
I would think so.
I’m actually a bit disappointed with how this was handled. Six hours really was not necessary and most of the people there were probably just passing by and curious as to what was happening.
I’m a fan of Katy but being almost an hour and a half late was not very cool to the fans who had to wait in the sweltering heat.
And besides, six hours of road closures? That’s too extreme.
