Official Toronto - Outlet and Store report

[DYNAMICS]

I think the crowd boo'd him because of his comment and not the place to do so. I was shaking my head when he started talking and even Ibaka was telling him to chill.

I was at work at 7am and saw the crowd forming so I decided no way I was getting into that mess especially since I despise large crowds like that.

I could see it from my desk anyways as it faces NPS. I did manage to get out for an hour or so and it was mayhem and all I could smell was horse **** and weed lol.

What did DG say.

It was amazing to see people on the rooftops and balconies of buildings surrounding NPS. All packed.

heard the delays were all around the exhibition grounds which caused the 1 hr plus delay.

FYI, i'm sure most of the city already has the Champions hat but they have a ton at SC ScotiaBank (no line to get in) as well as RS (line up to get in). RS also has the Got'Em podium tees and Finals patches again for those looking for them. SC only had the locker room tees

It looked bad on Lakeshore too under the Gardiner.

Thanks for the update, staying away from DT for a while but I hope restocks continue. I still need both championship/podium tees and finals patches.

Any word when that Sports Illustrated issue will be on newsstands? I was lucky to get a few copies of todays Toronto Star.

 

[jolly]

Just got home, supreme washed.

Got to NPS at 5:00am. Even though it was packed then you could still move through the crowd, so I was pretty close to the front on the left side of the stage. All in all I should've stayed up. The 3-hour delay for the pep rally at NPS was clearly seen on the players when the rally got started. Everyone seemed tired, short speeches, no energy. Can't believe the streets weren't barricaded properly causing the parade to move so slow.

Honestly if you felt bad about missing the pep rally at NPS, you were better off not going. They barely showed the parade on the big screens, a lot of quiet down time, no crowd engagement, and music being played was very sporadic.

With ALL of that being said. It was beautiful to see the city come out like that and all the good energy despite the 3-hour delay. Can't believe clowns tried to ruin the day with violence at NPS and Eaton Centre.

Honestly, this was an embarrassing showing by MLSE.
Probably the worst experience I've ever had as a fan.

I camped the night before at 10pm. Crowd that camped was all chill and reasonable.

At 5am the operations people opened one of the gates so the crowd could get closer. By then the crowd was mixed in with ratchet high school kids without chairs. Everyone rushed to the front and now it became a squeeze up situation.

If you were in the crowd, you basically had to stay put for the duration of the wait.
Which, for some people, was 10 hours until they arrived.

1) No access to food or water
2) No access to washroom
3) No entertainment for the 10 hours people were there going stir crazy

For an organization as big as that, they could've easily done something wayyyyy better

1) Do FCFS on wristbands and create gated sections for the square then general admission for outside of the square
2) Create real gated routes with security to monitor people coming and going with approved wristbands
3) Have more food vendors closer or behind the stage to feed the 2.5 million people in the area
4) Play every raptors win during the finals to distract/occupy the crowd for those 10 hours
5) Maybe hire a few of the dozen Canadian billboard artists we have to entertain the crowd?

A few other obvious things:
1) Toronto sign, like why not make the circle in the Toronto sign a Raptors logo?
2) Have some sort of crowd control? Remind people to allow people to go to the restrooms and make space for children + elders.
3) Update the people with a countdown or show where the parade caravan is so we can make a decision if we should dip or not?

I get it that this is our first championship and all that and most of this is unprecedented, but fam...
Some of this was too obvious.

end rant.

 

[ferndaburn]

What did DG say.



Here's the video.....too lazy to type it all out.

 

[asiatic204]

We tried finding parking at Port Credit GO, then Dixie GO, both with no success so decided to go to Sherway and call it a day.

Probably a blessing in disguise once we got home and saw how crazy it was.

Going through those crowds with a 13 month old probably wouldn't have been the best thing for us anyway.

 

[DYNAMICS]

Honestly, this was an embarrassing showing by MLSE.
Probably the worst experience I've ever had as a fan.

I camped the night before at 10pm. Crowd that camped was all chill and reasonable.

At 5am the operations people opened one of the gates so the crowd could get closer. By then the crowd was mixed in with ratchet high school kids without chairs. Everyone rushed to the front and now it became a squeeze up situation.

If you were in the crowd, you basically had to stay put for the duration of the wait.
Which, for some people, was 10 hours until they arrived.

1) No access to food or water
2) No access to washroom
3) No entertainment for the 10 hours people were there going stir crazy

For an organization as big as that, they could've easily done something wayyyyy better

1) Do FCFS on wristbands and create gated sections for the square then general admission for outside of the square
2) Create real gated routes with security to monitor people coming and going with approved wristbands
3) Have more food vendors closer or behind the stage to feed the 2.5 million people in the area
4) Play every raptors win during the finals to distract/occupy the crowd for those 10 hours
5) Maybe hire a few of the dozen Canadian billboard artists we have to entertain the crowd?

A few other obvious things:
1) Toronto sign, like why not make the circle in the Toronto sign a Raptors logo?
2) Have some sort of crowd control? Remind people to allow people to go to the restrooms and make space for children + elders.
3) Update the people with a countdown or show where the parade caravan is so we can make a decision if we should dip or not?

I get it that this is our first championship and all that and most of this is unprecedented, but fam...
Some of this was too obvious.

end rant.

Yeah a lot of the issues could've been avoided with simple common sense, but Toronto is city that goes against that I've realized. If I had to do it all again I would've just went to the parade starting point early, caught the kickoff from 10-12 then go home and watched everything thing else.


Ah, yeah boos made sense.

I was either zoned out, on my phone or doing something else when Green was talking. Only cared to hear Lowry and Leonard. I was hoping they would let Gasol's drunk *** speak.

 

[chu416]

What did DG say.

It was amazing to see people on the rooftops and balconies of buildings surrounding NPS. All packed.



It looked bad on Lakeshore too under the Gardiner.

Thanks for the update, staying away from DT for a while but I hope restocks continue. I still need both championship/podium tees and finals patches.

Any word when that Sports Illustrated issue will be on newsstands? I was lucky to get a few copies of todays Toronto Star.

they had tons of patches at RS so i think you're good if you want to cop in person, if not you can always grab them off the Emblem Store too (http://www.theemblemsource.com/nba-patches/2018-nba-finals-patch.html). they also had tons of those podium tees in store as well at RS but i think you can also hit up Nike stores since they were supposed to get their shipment on Saturday afternoon assuming they weren't sold out, could save you a trip into the core.

We tried finding parking at Port Credit GO, then Dixie GO, both with no success so decided to go to Sherway and call it a day.

Probably a blessing in disguise once we got home and saw how crazy it was.

Going through those crowds with a 13 month old probably wouldn't have been the best thing for us anyway.

yea, given the delays my two kids were looking pretty beat by the end of it so i think you made the right call.

 

[DYNAMICS]

Yeah I was at Nike TEC on Saturday. Only had XL and XXL. The merch is automatic cash cows, so hopefully they'll keep restocking these next few weeks.

 

[Naruto]

Phones weren't working where I was and nobody had any idea what was going on. Also a lot of *******s shoving but other than that and the three hour delay I was glad I went

 

[1438008135]

Glad i went to the parade. But will never do that again unless i get the VIP seating in the stands somehow. Stood from 8 am till the end. Was close to the stage so didn't hear the gunshots. My feet, knees, legs are still hurting today and not to mention my face got burned. There was no advantage in being their at 3-4 am since you probably had to go to the washroom and once you did, game over, no one letting you back in.

 

[ct15]

Honestly, this was an embarrassing showing by MLSE.
Probably the worst experience I've ever had as a fan.

I camped the night before at 10pm. Crowd that camped was all chill and reasonable.

At 5am the operations people opened one of the gates so the crowd could get closer. By then the crowd was mixed in with ratchet high school kids without chairs. Everyone rushed to the front and now it became a squeeze up situation.

If you were in the crowd, you basically had to stay put for the duration of the wait.
Which, for some people, was 10 hours until they arrived.

1) No access to food or water
2) No access to washroom
3) No entertainment for the 10 hours people were there going stir crazy

For an organization as big as that, they could've easily done something wayyyyy better

1) Do FCFS on wristbands and create gated sections for the square then general admission for outside of the square
2) Create real gated routes with security to monitor people coming and going with approved wristbands
3) Have more food vendors closer or behind the stage to feed the 2.5 million people in the area
4) Play every raptors win during the finals to distract/occupy the crowd for those 10 hours
5) Maybe hire a few of the dozen Canadian billboard artists we have to entertain the crowd?

A few other obvious things:
1) Toronto sign, like why not make the circle in the Toronto sign a Raptors logo?
2) Have some sort of crowd control? Remind people to allow people to go to the restrooms and make space for children + elders.
3) Update the people with a countdown or show where the parade caravan is so we can make a decision if we should dip or not?

I get it that this is our first championship and all that and most of this is unprecedented, but fam...
Some of this was too obvious.

end rant.

Wow! Are you me? haha I have the exact same take aways from the event...

I'm honestly NOT surprised at the outcome though because this is what happens when you try to plan a party for 2+ million fans in under 3 days. It's honestly impossible to get all the infrastructure in place to have the event run smoothly.

Why would you put barricades on only 1 side of the street? It doesn't make sense - ONLY if they didn't have enough to do so (again, another point to rush planning).

NPS legit turned into one giant mosh pit, it was gross.

My buddy was fortunate enough to book a room at the Sheraton across the street with a NPS view using employee pricing. We showed up on Sunday night and NPS was pretty tamed so we went back to our room for the night. I woke up at 3:30am to use the washroom and looked out my window... the crowd grew a lot so I decided to head down and "camp out". Everything was going well until they moved the barricades at the front like you mentioned (5am). That's when it became a GONG SHOW! I was also disgusted by how many people were smoking weed in front of children and pregnant people. It was insane! I legit got high at 7am off of second hand intake standing in the mosh pit....

Unfortunately I had to use the washroom at 8am I had a feeling I was doomed. Even getting there took me a while because of how crammed it was. I legit tried getting back to my spot where my buddy was multiple times but was met with so much resistance. I ended up going back to my room after grabbing food and enjoyed the rest of the festivities from there, which was the biggest blessing in disguise because we invited a bunch of buddies that were already down at NPS to our room and had our own viewing party in the comforts of our room w/ drinks + food + washroom. I was even able to squeeze in a nap! haha

Attached are 2 pictures I took from my POV at 8am and 12PM. Definitely NO REGRETS on using the washroom.... Hands down Gasol stole the show at the parade. He would have brought the crowd back to life if they let him speak!!! WE THE CHAMPS!!!

 

[ct15]

Glad i went to the parade. But will never do that again unless i get the VIP seating in the stands somehow. Stood from 8 am till the end. Was close to the stage so didn't hear the gunshots. My feet, knees, legs are still hurting today and not to mention my face got burned. There was no advantage in being their at 3-4 am since you probably had to go to the washroom and once you did, game over, no one letting you back in.

HAHAHA good timing of posts....

 

[DYNAMICS]

Also was annoyed they eventually let people on the ramp at City Hall. Originally thats where I wanted to be.

I was able to leave to the washroom and come back. Sadly I guess it depends on your "look" and how you went about it. No one stopped me or tried to stop me from going through. I was actually waiting for someone to try it. I felt bad for this one family, this woman took her kid to the bathroom and I noticed they were gone for a long while. Speaking with the husband he told me she messaged him that they were trying to get back in but people wouldn't let them through.

 

[chu416]

Also was annoyed they eventually let people on the ramp at City Hall. Originally thats where I wanted to be.

I was able to leave to the washroom and come back. Sadly I guess it depends on your "look" and how you went about it. No one stopped me or tried to stop me from going through. I was actually waiting for someone to try it. I felt bad for this one family, this woman took her kid to the bathroom and I noticed they were gone for a long while. Speaking with the husband he told me she messaged him that they were trying to get back in but people wouldn't let them through.

yea my wife, kids and I were trying to get to our family and these ppl were trying to box us out and started complaining (this was at like 9:50am and not even at NPS). I was pretty annoyed given that we told them we were just trying to get back to our family. My 6 month old was strapped to my wife and i was holding my two year old and all i could think of was are you kidding me man? you seriously gonna try and box out this women with a toddler strapped to her. I almost lost until other ppl around these ppl moved out the way and looked at them like they were tripping

 

[jolly]

Also was annoyed they eventually let people on the ramp at City Hall. Originally thats where I wanted to be.

I was able to leave to the washroom and come back. Sadly I guess it depends on your "look" and how you went about it. No one stopped me or tried to stop me from going through. I was actually waiting for someone to try it. I felt bad for this one family, this woman took her kid to the bathroom and I noticed they were gone for a long while. Speaking with the husband he told me she messaged him that they were trying to get back in but people wouldn't let them through.

No racist, but if you were white you weren't getting through a lot of the groups who were being stubborn.

 

[DYNAMICS]

It's tough. But that's 2019 nowadays, people are inconsiderate more than ever. I see it from both sides. My group of friends and the people around us decided we werent letting anyone walk through us unless we saw them leave before. If I'm able to live and see another championship win from any of the major 3 Toronto teams, I'm staying home and watching live.

Just frustrating because I myself could've made the rally more enjoyable (pretty much the list jolly ) broke down. Even when the Raptors made the Finals I had so man creative fan experience ideas, but I have no one to get them to or a platform to execute them.

ALSO, the rally should've been in SkyDome. Significance of their 1st home court, have the dome open. Cover the field and make half GA and half seats.

 

[DYNAMICS]

No racist, but if you were white you weren't getting through a lot of the groups who were being stubborn.

Yeah I wasn't going to say it but thats what I meant by "look"...if you were white or asian you weren't getting through unless you're experienced with how to move in those situations.

ALSO, I wasn't going to say anything but I'm in a good mood. The stuff drops Friday. I won't say what but the smart ones will figure it out. Just heads up to get some money together.

 

[jolly]

It's tough. But that's 2019 nowadays, people are inconsiderate more than ever. I see it from both sides. My group of friends and the people around us decided we werent letting anyone walk through us unless we saw them leave before. If I'm able to live and see another championship win from any of the major 3 Toronto teams, I'm staying home and watching live.

Just frustrating because I myself could've made the rally more enjoyable (pretty much the list jolly ) broke down. Even when the Raptors made the Finals I had so man creative fan experience ideas, but I have no one to get them to or a platform to execute them.

ALSO, the rally should've been in SkyDome. Significance of their 1st home court, have the dome open. Cover the field and make half GA and half seats.

For real, in hindsight, I would've gone to princess gates and get the fan experience and then head to somebody's place and order food to enjoy the rally from the crib. You get the vibe and all the buzz of the city + get to be in the comforts of home like going to the washroom....

 

[ct15]

Yeah I wasn't going to say it but thats what I meant by "look"...if you were white or asian you weren't getting through unless you're experienced with how to move in those situations.

ALSO, I wasn't going to say anything but I'm in a good mood. The stuff drops Friday. I won't say what but the smart ones will figure it out. Just heads up to get some money together.

You are the REAL MVP! Same usual time?

 

[chu416]

It's tough. But that's 2019 nowadays, people are inconsiderate more than ever. I see it from both sides. My group of friends and the people around us decided we werent letting anyone walk through us unless we saw them leave before. If I'm able to live and see another championship win from any of the major 3 Toronto teams, I'm staying home and watching live.

Just frustrating because I myself could've made the rally more enjoyable (pretty much the list jolly ) broke down. Even when the Raptors made the Finals I had so man creative fan experience ideas, but I have no one to get them to or a platform to execute them.

ALSO, the rally should've been in SkyDome. Significance of their 1st home court, have the dome open. Cover the field and make half GA and half seats.

FACTS, that would've been great

 

[fenixconnexion.]

Q coming through with that info

 

[drc88]

If anyone has an extra copy of Friday’s Globe & Mail DM me! Thanks!

 

[JustPassItToWill]

Was just at STC house of hoops. They were just putting out attached shirt. Full size run at the moment. S-XXL. For anyone looking.

 

[tml0807]

Was just at STC house of hoops. They were just putting out attached shirt. Full size run at the moment. S-XXL. For anyone looking.

Thank you for posting this!
This was the T I wanted most!!

 

[megapablo]

Raptors edition of the 997 and the 990v5 in Raptor colours. Pre-order tomorrow at 11am.

 

[DYNAMICS]

Was just at STC house of hoops. They were just putting out attached shirt. Full size run at the moment. S-XXL. For anyone looking.

Thanks. This was one of the tees I still have to get. Perfect!