Everyone has a favourite music artist and to have the opportunity to see them live can be the chance of a lifetime. The tickets don’t come cheap and if it’s an artist who is practically a household name, they sell out within minutes of sales opening. If you’re lucky enough to secure one, then there are months to wait until the big night comes. Months of getting excited about new songs that are being released and memorising the lyrics so that you can sing along and many days dedicated to deciding on your outfit and gossip about any leaked details with your friends. Everything is planned down to the last detail, from travel plans to where you’re going to eat beforehand, all to make sure that it’s up there with your top memories. Never do you think for a moment that it’s going to be anything less than perfect. Never do you think it’s going to end in panic. Never do you think that there’s a possibility that you won’t make it home again. But that was the reality on Monday night at Manchester Arena as an Ariana Grande concert was ending.
Ariana Grande is one of those singers who is very popular with the younger demographic. She started out as a young actress before breaking into the world of pop. She’s one of those stars who’s got a pretty wholesome image and dedicates quite a bit of time and money to charity work. There’s a lot about her that people can like and so it was no surprise that about half of the audience of this concert were said to be under the age of 18. Many were teenagers who were taking a step into adulthood and attending along while others hadn’t even reached their teens and were clutching the hands of a parent.
It should have been a night of pink balloons and upbeat pop music but it ended in carnage.
Within moments of the explosion occurring, the wider world became aware of it. News apps pushed through “breaking news” notifications but no-one seemed to know what had actually happened. Some initial reports mooted the idea that it was a balloon popping into a microphone or a loudspeaker blowing, but as reports of injuries started to filter through, it became clear that it was something more than that.
This is where social media was able to come into its own. There were of course some who were intent on getting as many shares and retweets as possible by sharing fake accounts and photographs.
But soon they were overcome by those who wanted to do some good and I was stuck by that famous quote from “The Mister Rogers Parenting book”.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
So many were out there to do all they could do to help. Within minutes the emergency services were there going about their duties as calmly as possible while panic and distress was rife around them. A nearby Holiday Inn were quick to start sheltering unaccompanied minors, ensuring them some safety and a central place for parents to start looking as well as a vital phone line for those who couldn’t use their mobiles. As the public transport routes were shut down as a precautionary measure, taxi drivers were turning off their meters to bring people home for free rather than exploiting the desperation that would obviously be felt. Local people took to Twitter with the hashtag #RoomForManchester, offering up somewhere to sleep and a warm drink. Blood donation session locations for Tuesday morning were being shared because people were more than aware that supplies would be vital in the coming hours and days.
But along with that came the heartbreak. Desperate parents who couldn’t get through to their children were posting their names and photographs online in the hope that someone would recognise them and confirm that they were safe. Eyewitness accounts began to be posted and each was more harrowing than the last. The Greater Manchester police used Twitter as a tool to communicate with the masses, warning them to move away as a controlled explosion was imminent, before informing the public that the object had transpired to be a pile of abandoned clothing. Hospitals spoke out with a plea for people to only attend nearby hospitals with life-threatening conditions as their resources were going to be under immense pressure all night.
The rumours were bad but as they were confirmed things just became even more harrowing. First we heard that there were confirmed fatalities, then the first numbers came out – 19 dead and fifty injured. That was followed by counter-terrorism units confirming that it was being treated as a possible terrorist attack with further statements scheduled to be released through the morning.
One of my final university modules has focused on ‘war and visual culture’ and I spent the weekend writing an essay on how surveillance can be used against the war on terror. As I submitted it on Monday morning, I never thought that later that night I’d be seeing the theory that I’d been reading over the past few months turn into a reality. At times like this, you realise just how essential all aspects of the media become relevant because as rumours trickle out, concrete information from reputable sources is needed so that a devastating situation isn’t made worse with misinformation.
As the immediate aftermath calms down into Tuesday morning, the real effects will come to be seen. I know that I’m shaken even sitting here in Fermanagh so I cannot imagine how those living in Manchester must be feeling, nor those who are desperately still trying to make contact with their friends and family. Before tonight it would have been unthinkable for a gathering characterised with innocence, joy and youth to have been so targeted. It just makes me so angry. How dare someone take it upon themselves to destroy lives like this? My gut reaction is that it was planned to cause as much destruction as possible by placing it in the foyer and timed to go off just as patrons were making their way out and while parents were waiting to pick up their excited children. What on earth is going on in someone’s mind to make them think that it is okay to cause such hurt to totally innocent people? It’s absolutely abhorrent. Thousands of people will have had their lives changed forever tonight. They’ll have nightmares for months to come and perhaps injuries that will have lasting effects. Despite being huge fans of Ariana Grande, any time they hear her music, they’ll be gripped by the fear that was felt as they were leaving the arena that night.  
This concert should have been one shared only through happy photographs and selfies posted to Facebook that the majority of us would never have even heard of. Instead images of horror are being beamed across the world and everyone knows of the atrocity. The adrenaline will wear off to be replaced with uncertainty and fear. We saw it happen in Paris after their terror attack in November 2015 and again in London in March after the attack at Westminster. 
The following days will no doubt be difficult for some to get through and nearly impossible for others and yet I have no doubt that the people of Manchester and the wider United Kingdom will still manage to come together to prove that they will not be beaten by this and that they are stronger while united.