Remembering Fun 107’s Big Time Rush Fairhaven Fiasco

Last week marked 11 years since the Big Time Rush Fairhaven fiasco at Monster Mini Golf.

If you were one of the thousands of fans who showed up to meet the band (Gazelle is interviewing the group today), here's the back story about what went wrong that day.

A few weeks before the Big Time Rush event, I got a call from Columbia Records asking if we'd be interested in setting something up with the guys. Truthfully, I had never heard of them. They had never had a radio hit, and my kids weren't old enough to be interested in their Nickelodeon show.

See Full Photo Gallery from the Big Time Rush Fairhaven Night Below

"Sure," I told Columbia Records.  "Why not? Let's do something with the guys." We had been looking for something fun to do at Monster Mini Golf in Fairhaven. This sounded like it could be pretty cool. I asked my rep from Columbia how many people the guys would be willing to meet... and his answer was something like, "Whatever is fine."

In his mind, I think he knew that the guys were very good with the public and would meet as many people as we invited to the event. So we went on the radio and invited anyone who wanted to meet Big Time Rush to come down to Monster Mini Golf.

It was a Tuesday night. The event was starting at 6. When I pulled up to the CVS plaza at about 5:45, I saw a sea of people crossing Route 6 to get in line to meet the band. Picture the crowds of people you'd see crossing Route 1 in Foxboro to walk into a Patriots game. That's the level of crowd that showed up. Thousands and thousands of people.

Oh, and by the way, it was 2 degrees.

Thankfully, Fairhaven Police showed up to help us with this unexpected crowd. Police estimated roughly 7,000 people had shown up, so right off the bat, they sent half of them home. Thousands of people, the whole back half of the crowded line, went home disappointed. At least they were spared spending hours in the bitter cold waiting for the guys to arrive.

Naturally, the band couldn't be on time. That would have been too easy. They showed up over an hour late, but they had a good excuse. They got caught up meeting kids at Boston Children's Hospital.

When they finally arrived, Big Time Rush took pictures and signed autographs for EVERYBODY there. It took HOURS to get through the THOUSANDS of people that day, but they met everyone.