Disclosure's Show in Toronto Culminated in a Coat Check Disaster

We have only just begun to nonchalantly don our toques and playfully chide our friends about how much we enjoy "hoodie season." Though leaves are still yellow, tenuously grasping the outstretched limbs of the trees that gave them life, a pall has fallen on Canada. Over the weekend a "coat check melee" went down at Disclosure's concert at the Enercare Centre in Toronto.

After long waits to get into coat check when the show ended, fans took matters into their own hands and forced down the makeshift fences. The Star reports that numerous concertgoers found "that their coats had been stolen or rummaged through." A video shot of the event by Melanie Langevine, an attendee of the show, and ensuing negative press prompted a response from the event promoter, Embrace.

They issued an official statement on their Facebook Page, stating, "We would like to sincerely apologize to those patrons affected by the coat check situation at the Disclosure event at Enercare Centre this past weekend. We are working with our production team and the coat check operator to resolve this situation as quickly as possible and reunite people with their lost coats."

Yet, through the shaking lens of a camera and the shrill voice of its narrator, a Lovecraftian terror that, although muted, has undeniably asserted itself into our Canadian psyches.

The vague horrors of winter clubbing are quickly coming into focus and it's only October.

That video, like some sad northern iteration of The Ring, is an unrestrained glimpse into the madness that dwells just below the tranquil surface of any coat check line. It is the nightmarish id of the Canadian clubber; it is a harbinger and it is a doom. Every pilfered pocket, every stolen wallet is a reminder that humanity is only ever a few flimsy wire fences and underpaid, apathetic security guards away from tumbling down the abyss.

@MellieLangie @CityNews and here's a vid from another perspective pic.twitter.com/PLDc2BFQxD
— Hillary (@disco_hits) October 18, 2015

We can now, perhaps, only try to pretend. We'll drink our cider hot; we'll grip our mugs extra tight and make small-talk about how cozy it is on our porches. We'll compliment the ubiquity of pumpkins and say how much we are looking forward to Halloween. We'll do anything to keep our minds from straying back to that shadow.

The howling gales have not yet come roaring off the water fronts, ruffling our finery. The mottled black and gray snowbanks have not yet begun to pile up on the sides of the roads as we shiver in line. But have no doubt, dear clubber, the time is upon us.

If a coat check is not safe in October, it will never be safe again.

People who lost their coats at Disclosure's show in Toronto should contact info@coatconnexion.ca with a photo of their coat check ticket, a description and picture of their coat if possible.