Moby rocked the crowd on Sunday night, but the traffic and safety arrangements leading to the venue were shambolic, and that is putting it mildly.

The venue was in the fields serviced by narrow farmers’ lanes leading in from Zebbug and Rabat. Now anyone with a little bit of common sense would have said that the solution was easy... one way in... one way out. It really is as simple as that, but not in Malta – traffic was two way with cars lining the sides of the roads.

It’s hard to estimate the number of people who attended but there were many thousands. Even if people went to the event four to a car, there were still also many thousands of cars that tried to make their way in. The fact of the matter is that some people had paid good money for reserved parking, and wanted to use it if they had paid for it. The reserved parking area was behind the stage meaning that these vehicles had to snake through roads clogged with people, badly parked cars and oncoming traffic down roads which can barely fit a car through them.

The situation was ridiculous, starting all the way from the arterial roads. There was hardly any police or warden presence (in fact most of the handful of traffic ‘organisers’ were from the Malta Transport Authority). This led to the usual Maltese habit of drivers pulling onto the outer lane and overtaking the slowly snaking traffic at breakneck speed. Of course this was infuriating for those who waited patiently, but more importantly, it is downright dangerous to oncoming traffic. Many drivers who were minding their own business reported near misses.

Once people got into the country roads closer to the venue, disorganisation changed to chaos, panic and an absolute mockery of what a traffic management plan should be.

The handful of ADT representatives which were supposed to direct traffic were clueless, more of a hindrance than anything else. To be fair to them, their numbers were so small that they could not really do anything.

The problems were mostly caused by cars parked up next to rubble walls in any old fashion. Were the drivers told to move them? Of course not. After all, what can one ADT guy do against a car load of bullish men who don’t care where they park? Wait a minute... couldn’t the road have been cordoned off? Of course it could, or at least steel barriers could have been put down the road to prevent people from parking. Here’s a novel idea... organise a shuttle bus... Is it really that hard?

The chaos had to be seen to be believed. People dodging in and out of traffic, vans and trucks trying to squeeze past. But the best bit comes at the end. Right at the entrance there were hundreds of people queuing up and spilling out onto the road. Cars trying to get to the parking area had to negotiate this... but this is where disorganisation gives way to stupidity. The entrance had to be where it was, but did there really have to be hot dog stands (and a good number of them) on the other side of a narrow road? Picture it, thousands of people jostling to get in, a good other number jostling to get a hotdog on the other side of the road and frustrated drivers who had been in traffic for up to two hours trying to get to the car park. Quite how anyone was not seriously injured is a miracle. If this is what traffic management is supposed to be, God help us when Isle of MTV is held. The ADT really should look at what they did (actually didn’t do), learn from it and put it right. It’s 2009... although you would be hard pressed to believe it sometimes.