‘This is an embarrassment’: Agitated Beyoncé/Jay-Z fans criticize Comet bus shuttles

Tuesday night’s concert featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z didn’t completely go off without a hitch.

The Comet faced criticism online from users over what they said was an inadequate number of shuttles before the concert and lengthy wait times.

The Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority — or COMET — offered round-trip shuttles to and from the concert at Williams-Brice Stadium for $3, with the State Museum and the Lincoln Street parking garage as its primary pickup and dropoff points.

Twitter user Stacie Cooper expressed frustration at seeing four buses in an hour and a half.

“You all do better for the USC football games,” she said. “This is ridiculous.”

Concert-goer Allen Wallace said in a tweet that a bus “just pulled into the State Museum parking lot, saw hundreds of people waiting for the #OTRII shuttle, and left with no one aboard.”

Comet tweeted an apology to fans for the lack of buses just before 7:30 p.m.

“At this hour of the day, we are taking people home from work,” the apology reads. “Every bus not required for our normal service needs to the community is on the OTRII route. As soon as those buses are available, there will be more shuttles.”

“It’s 7:30,” Wallace said, retweeting the apology. “And you offered this service. People paid for it. You didn’t deliver. This is an embarrassment and it’ll take a lot more than a tweet to fix it.”

Comet CEO John Andoh addressed fans’ complaints in a Facebook post Tuesday night.

“While it took us a while to get everyone to the stadium, we were able to get everyone there by 8 pm,” he said. “Several of you had concerns with the lack of buses. With only a fleet of 58 buses, we had 80 percent of them in service running their normal routes and we used the balance 20 percent or 10 buses to shuttle you. Because of our small fleet, and our overall need to serve the community, we have to do the best with what we got.”

Not all of the feedback was negative, though.

“As someone who rides The Comet every day, I understand that you can’t just take buses out of service to accommodate a concert,” said concert-goer and Twitter user @ThatsSoRaechel. “Shout out to Johnny the driver who took my friends there and back. He was awesome!”

Concert-goer Tenita Bradley also expressed thanks for the bus service.

[A]ll your employee have been very nice,” she said. “I know they are tired.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2018 at 9:15 AM.