A major security breach threw one of the summer's biggest concerts into chaos on Sunday night, forcing a lockdown and an hours-long delay at Jay-Z's show at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Instead of streaming into the ballpark for the performance, thousands of ticket holders found themselves stuck outside as the stadium was sealed off, turning what was meant to be a marquee night of music into a long and frustrating wait.
The trouble began at the gates. According to police, a large group of people bum-rushed at least one, and possibly two, of the security gates, forcing their way past the checkpoints in a sudden surge. The breach was serious enough that it could not simply be waved off, and it immediately put the venue's security operation on high alert as staff scrambled to regain control of the entrances.
The response was swift and sweeping. Once the crowd rushed the gate, security moved to stop everyone from entering and placed the entire stadium into a lockdown. That decision halted the orderly flow of fans into the venue, freezing the crowd in place outside as officials worked to secure the perimeter and make sure no one else got through without being screened.
The timing could hardly have been worse for the show. The concert had been scheduled to begin at 8 o'clock, but the breach and the lockdown that followed blew past that start time entirely. With the gates closed, the performance could not go ahead as planned, and the delay stretched on as the crowd outside grew and the evening wore on.
It was not until around 10 o'clock that the situation began to ease. At that point the lockdown was lifted, and ticket holders were slowly allowed to start filing into the stadium. Even then, the process was painfully slow, with security carefully working through the backlog of fans, and the line into the venue crawled forward well after the show was supposed to have started.
For many of those on the outside, the night had turned into an ordeal. A large group of unhappy concertgoers were still waiting to get in, unsure of when the music would finally begin. As of late Sunday night, there was no word on exactly when the concert would start, leaving fans of one of Yankee Stadium's headline summer shows to wait and hope the night could still be salvaged.