We have the same restrictions at our local outdoor concert venue. No outside food or drink, no chairs, no umbrellas, no blankets... I'm trying to remember if they were making people check their backpacks at the last outdoor concert I attended. I understand the no food or drink rule, even if I don't agree with it - it's to raise revenue, just as in the movie theaters. The chairs and umbrellas are supposed to be "potential weapons" if a fight breaks out. Ok, I could buy that... until I heard that some concessioniere has started renting chairs at these concerts, and *those* chairs are ok! I guess there's something about them (can't imagine what!) which would prevent them from being used as a weapon in a fight. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic!) Now, blankets I have never been able to figure out... what sort of weapon can you make from a blanket? Trip someone with it? Smother them? I admit I'm rather naive and not up on all the things which can possibly be used as weapons in this world.

I remember having my purse "searched" going into a concert once. The searcher was so thorough (not!!) that I could have had a ton of explosives in there, and she wouldn't have known it. Now, granted, I am a rather un-suspicious looking middle-aged (eek!) woman, and it was a Rod Stewart concert, and I was with a group of equally un-suspicious looking other middle-aged (eek!) women, but still...I don't recall them being much more thorough in their search techniques at the KISS concert and I was with three very dangerous looking 20-something males (my son and his friends) that night. So it would seem there's a lot of contradictions in terms of security at concerts and other public entertainment events, these days.

Annie