A large crowd of young people, mostly performers, converges on the accreditation centre at Emmet Park, St. George's College, in Kingston, yesterday evening, in a last-minute bid to collect their passes for the opening ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup, which takes place on Sunday at the newly-constructed Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium. -Norman Grindley /Deputy Chief Photographer

Edmond Campbell and Shelly-Ann Thompson, Gleaner Writers

Chaos reigned at Emmet Park, St. George's College last evening, as more than 1,000 performers for Sunday's opening ceremony of the ICC Cricket World Cup turned out to collect their accreditation passes for the event.

Members of the police force and security guards had to assist in controlling the crowd, which initially received no instructions as to where at Emmet Park the documentation should be collected.

"There is nobody to speak to us to tell us what to do. So we are just standing in the line," said one irate performer.

The 1,200 performers, mostly students, were told to collect their opening ceremony accreditation passes between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. yesterday.

Different instructions

However, when the performers turned out, some with their parents, different instructions were given, including that the passes would be issued later in the evening while they rehearsed at nearby Sabina Park. For those who still had not left Emmet Park, they were told again that passes would be issued on the buses while they travelled to the Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium on Saturday.

By then, some of the performers had collected their passes, hence frustration grew among others. About 6:45 p.m., a member of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for Cricket world Cup advised the agitated crowd that their coordinators and choreographers, some 35 persons, would collect the passes today and issue them to the various performers.

Meanwhile, Lisa O'Gilvie, events manager at the LOC, said an announcement was made in error that everyone should visit the centre to receive their accreditation. She acknowledged that hundreds of persons converged on the centre which resulted in "some amount of confusion".

Ms. O'Gilvie told The Gleaner that the accreditation exercise was the responsibility of Rushmans International, and not the LOC. "The entire accreditation process is not an LOC or Jamaica process, but a programme that is established by the events authorities," Ms. O'Gilvie advised.

She said, however, that the process should be completed by today, adding that a team from the LOC was providing support to Rushmans International to sort out the problem.

One mother, whose daughter will be participating in the opening ceremony, said that the accreditation pick-up was a disgrace.

"You should have seen the pushing and disorderly conduct at the gate," she remarked.