All of Kochi was buzzing with excitement on 14th February 2019. The reason? A visit from the Hollywood superstar Sunny Leone! She was due to perform at the Adlux venue. Fans lined the streets outside the event venue from early in the morning, and by mid-day, massive crowds had formed. Although there were robust police arrangements, these fell far short in controlling the enormous crowds, which soon ran amuck. Traffic was at a standstill and much of the city centre witnessed incredible traffic jams.
The irony was that after causing such a huge disturbance, ultimately, fans couldn’t get a glimpse of Sunny Leone. She announced on her Twitter handle that she would not be appearing after all. There were some disagreements with the promoters regarding fees which ultimately pushed her performance to April 2019.
There was a major lesson for the event manager who was in charge of the Valentine’s Day event. Mathrubhumbi reported that the event canceled due to the dispute with the event organizers on payment.
This was not the first time she had visited Kochi. Earlier, she had visited to launch a new showroom of mobile phones. On that occasion, fans had vaulted over barricades and any crowd control measures in place quickly failed. In fact, the police resorted to lathi charge to disperse the frenzied crowds. The event manager should have implemented more stringent crowd control measures and informed the police that additional personnel would be required. This would have prevented the cost of a private event from being spread out to the public at large. The irresponsible behavior and lack of clarity caused major problems for the city, the police, and even fans.
