A woman who was ejected from Saturday night’s Coldplay show at the Etihad after she stood up and danced during the song played at her mother-in-law’s funeral, has called the behaviour of security staff ‘disgusting’.
Andrea Nelson, from Moston, was in a seated area of the stadium and got up out of her seat to dance to the band’s anthem Yellow, but soon found herself being escorted out barely halfway through the set. Though tickets for her section of the stadium stipulate that standing during the concert is not allowed, she tried to reason with security and explain the situation.
But Andrea, who paid nearly £150 for her ticket, told the Manchester Evening News that staff at the stadium were ‘rude‘ and ‘would not listen’, and she and her partner Anthony soon found themselves being removed from the venue. “I stood up to dance, but so were other people. Because we were near the steps, security were next to us,” she said.
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“They asked me to sit down, so I asked if we could be moved somewhere else, bearing in mind this was my mother-in-law’s funeral song. I told them this.
“They said I might fall over the barrier, which basically came up to my chest. I’m five foot. Next thing, about 10 security came and escorted me out.”
Footage of Andrea dancing at the concert, moments before she was removed, has been posted to TikTok and has received tens of thousands of views. She went on: “About 10 men [arrived]. They said basically you need to leave. I told them I hadn’t done anything wrong, I’d not been abusive, I said this is my mother-in-law’s song, and this is why I got up.
“I didn’t realise the seats were restricted. If I had, we shouldn’t have been paying full price for them. I would not have paid that fee if I’d known you couldn’t stand up. Who goes to a concert where you can’t stand up?”
Yellow was the ninth song to be played on Saturday night, meaning that Andrea and her partner, who left with her, saw less than half the show before being asked to leave.
“It was disgusting really. It was just rude. They wouldn’t listen,” she added, saying that she didn’t see security speaking to any other gig-goers, some of whom she claims were also standing during the show.
“Other people were stood up on our row, but much further around into the row,” she went on. “Nothing was said to them, because they were more difficult to get to. It was just us who were targeted, because we were right next to security.
“They came and said, ‘you need to sit down’, I said ‘this is my mother-in-law’s song, I will sit down in a minute’. They were just rude, saying ‘we’re watching you’. And because I didn’t sit down straight away, they called security and a load of blokes came.
“The way it was handled was atrocious. I’m a five foot, 50-year-old woman, does it really need that many people to come and escort me out? I felt like a criminal. They said if you don’t leave with us, we can remove you by force. I’ve stood up and danced at a concert, what have I done wrong?”
Andrea said that the security staff did not remove her by force, and 'did not touch' her as she and partner Anthony were escorted out of the venue.
She admits that she just ‘scanned’ her ticket when she’d been sent it. The ticket explains that gig-goers in the restricted seats are not permitted to stand.
“Had I known this when I bought the tickets, I wouldn’t have bought them,” she says.
“It’s probably my own fault, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to stand up at a concert. Should they be selling tickets at full price when the seats have restrictions? No, they shouldn’t.”
The Manchester Evening News contacted the show's promoters SJM, but a spokesperson said it was 'unable to comment' on the matter.
“This meant a lot to me and my family. I was devastated. We’d paid a lot of money to come to this concert. It may never happen again in my lifetime. It was supposed to be a memorable concert for us, and this ruined it,” Andrea said. She is also in contact with the venue and is requesting a refund for her tickets.
“They could [have been] a lot more sensitive. They didn’t listen. How can you not stand up at a concert? That’s not my idea of going to a concert.”
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