At Barclays Center, an un-billed event draws more than 10,000 people (and lots of buses)

Along Atlantic Avenue

If 10,000-plus people come to the Barclays Center and no one from the arena announces it, does anyone notice?

Yes, they do.

On Sunday, May 14, more than 10,000 "practitioners of Falun Dafa, a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline," as described by the Epoch Times, attended the group's annual conference in New York.

It culminated at the Barclays Center to hear founder Li Hongzhi, the founder of the group, also known as Falun Gong.

Besides the crowd, numerous buses idled outside the arena, on Atlantic and Flatbush avenue, some in bus stops, as described by the neighbor who sent me the pictures.

There was also a small counter-protest, I'm told, presumably representing the perspective of the Chinese government, which represses Falun Gong and its members.

Not in the calendar

Along Flatbush Avenue

The event was unmentioned in the Barclays Center calendar circulated to neighbors, though a previous policy was to mention such non-ticketed events.

Nor was it mentioned in the 78th Precinct Twitter feed (which is supposed to be alerted by the arena) or the Barclays Center one.

At a public meeting earlier this month, I pointed out that such events can bring impacts from large crowds, thus justifying mention on the calendar. "We do not have plan to restore that [to the calendar], at the moment," the arena's Sara Berlenbach said, but "we’ll take it into consideration."

Without any explanation of the arena's policy, I have to speculate. Are they just lazy or uncaring? Could it be that such a policy means the arena, no longer run by Forest City Ratner, avoids offending the sensibilities of the Greenland Group, Forest City's partner/overseer on the rest of the Pacific Park project, which is owned significantly by the government of Shanghai?