Shania Twain concert plagued by delays at Ottawa's Wesley Clover Parks

The organizers of Saturday night's Shania Twain concert in Ottawa are apologizing to fans for long delays people experienced trying to leave the venue after the show.

Darren Matte was one of dozens of people trying to pick up concert attendees after the show.

He said it was "near impossible" to get to the concert site off Corkstown Road because there were about 20-30 shuttle buses lined up with dozens of other vehicles trying to pick people up with no signs or direction.

Some people had been waiting so long for a shuttle to take them to their vehicles that strangers started asking him for rides.

"People were just knocking on my window asking if I would take them somewhere. I had a couple people ask me if I could take them to the Nortel building or to the Canadian Tire Centre — they just saw that I had an empty car and wanted to hop in," Matte said.

"It was complete chaos. I don't know how it could be so bad, getting in and out of one venue."

Other people were so tired of waiting in the area congested with vehicles that they trekked through an unlit field of tall grass in the middle of the night.

"People were actually cutting through this field and just sort of appearing out of nowhere. It looked like something out of a horror movie, Children of the Corn, [people] sort of popping up out of nowhere ... in the complete darkness," Matte said.

"I couldn't have imagined trying to walk through that field ... It must have been crazy for people who were actually there, let alone someone who was just trying to pick somebody up."

Lines of hundreds

Resident Greg MacEachern, who attended the concert, said there were lines hundreds of people deep for food and drinks.

"Pretty much from the get-go, once we arrived at the venue, we could tell things were not running smoothly," he said.

The music was great, he said, but after the show ended the unmarked pick-up area looked overcrowded and "a bit dangerous," so his group decided to leave on foot.

"We ended up feeling a bit uneasy and just decided to walk away from the venue. We walked for about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes, to where we were able to flag a cab," MacEachern said.

'We'd like to apologize'

"On behalf of Wesley Clover Parks and our partners in the delivery of the Shania Twain concert last night, we'd like to apologize for any delays, discomfort and inconveniences that occurred during the exit at the end of the night," said a notice posted on the park's Facebook page on Sunday.

"We will seriously review the viability of events of that size at Wesley Clover Parks, and will only agree to host future events of that magnitude if we are assured that a far more workable plan can be deployed and effectively executed. We thank you for your patience and your feedback."

Social media complaints

Check out some of the negative reaction online: