Stephen Curry, along with De’Aaron Fox, was supposed to arrive at his hotel in Xi’an. But according to China Sports Vision 2050, “Due to overcrowding, Xi’an local government provinsionally [sic] cancelled Steven [sic] Curry’s visit to the city. After being stuck in the airport for two hours, the flight went northward to Shenyang, their next stop.”
Steph’s arrival on September 10th in Chengdu (yes, that Chengdu where Klay Thompson and Kevon Looney got their ears cleaned nearly a year ago) — from New York City, as shown here:
— didn’t go smoothly. The St. Regis Hotel was engulfed with fans both inside and outside. Traffic was severely messed up, per Weibo fan accounts. Going against Chinese culture, one fan reached out and grabbed Curry by the arm as he and his security team made a beeline from the van to the elevators.
Here’s my recap of that, and more, including a hot pot dinner with Chinese MMA fighter Zhang Weili, and Fox and Curry playing Mah jongg and ping pong, all on the night before the lead-up to yesterday’s Curry Brand House unveiling in Chengdu, which I will, of course, have a video recap of on the YouTube channel:
Various major Golden State Warriors and Steph fan accounts — these are no joke, the big ones have millions of followers — on Weibo also confirmed the cancellation of Xi’an. Here’s one with a lot of chronological detail (this post was translated by Google):
Let’s talk to you about the whole process of Curry’s China trip and why the Xi’an stop was cancelled.
1. First of all, when Curry arrived at the Chengdu hotel, there were already at least 20,000 people on the scene, causing serious traffic paralysis near the St. Regis Hotel. Later, the Municipal Bureau held an emergency meeting and made the subsequent itinerary more private.
2. Curry’s original itinerary to Xi’an was the three-point contest event at the city wall, the store activities at SEG Mall, and the visit to the Terracotta Warriors. Curry also mentioned during the live broadcast that the city he most wanted to visit was Xi’an.
3. Because Chengdu was too fierce, the official cancelled the three-point contest event at the city wall in the evening this morning. This event itself is the most distinctive and highlight event of Curry and Fox in China. In 2014, Kobe Bryant also did an event at the North Gate City Wall. Kobe said at the time that this was the coolest stadium he had ever seen.
4. After finishing the trip in Chengdu, Curry’s flight to Xianyang Airport at around 6 o’clock this evening. At this time, it was confirmed that Curry would come to Xi’an, but the public activities were cancelled, so many fans had gathered in front of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and there were also some fans in other hotels. However, in the subsequent communication with the Xi’an officials, it was confirmed that it was cancelled, and Curry flew directly to Shenyang from Xianyang Airport.
5. Why was the original event cancelled? Because there was a problem with the public security reporting. It was not so clear when it was reported. If it was defined as a fan meeting, it was reported to the Cultural and Tourism Bureau. If it was defined as a competition, it was reported to the Sports Bureau. This event was a bit weird because it was not held in a stadium like the Shanghai station, and tickets were sold. In addition, it was too fierce in Chengdu.
6. Why was the entire Xi’an station cancelled directly, and even the hotel was not checked in? The main reason is that the number of people gathered at the entrance of the hotel has indeed exceeded the original expectations. The most important reason is the sequelae of the TFBOYS Xi’an concert last year, which was severely criticized by the superiors. The Xi’an Olympic Sports Center has been vacant for a long time and has not held a concert. This time they are not afraid of accidents, so they decided to cancel the entire trip. The organizer is also very irresponsible. Both the event execution and the plan are not comprehensive.
7. The location of the selected hotel is very bad. This location is Ganjiazhai on Metro Line 6. There are a lot of people after work. Sometimes you can squeeze in three or four times. There are often traffic jams when driving after work. In addition, there are various companies and schools near this hotel, and the number of people is even more uncontrollable. More and more people are joining in the fun.
8. The event on the 16th of Curry’s China Tour Shanghai Station is the most stable. First of all, it is held in a large sports stadium. Secondly, after the report, it happened to be the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Shanghai Public Security Bureau has already cancelled half of the number of people, so the tickets are also less than before. This event will definitely not be cancelled. Everyone can relax. Shanghai’s experience in large-scale events is also better than other cities.
One thing that’s coincidentally weird is that I noticed Curry Brand’s poster for the event, released just two days ago, had all the cities blotted out:
Could the organizers have already known that security and overcrowding would be an issue? I actually put in an inquiry to Nick DePaula, the shoegame/kicks guru for ESPN, who has a direct line to Steph — DePaula told me he would ask but has not yet followed up with a reply.
I’ll continue to monitor and report major happenings from the Curry Brand China Tour, but mostly on YouTube. There’s detailed behind-the-scenes footage from both Chengdu and the aforementioned Xi’an airport, as well as the beautiful-yet-abandoned Xi’an tour venues, right around the corner!
This website will undergo a little workflow tweak before Warriors training camp starts at the end of this month. The goal is to feature a daily digest of various news, with obviously my own positive-thinking flavor (for lack of better words at the moment) which has become my calling card on the YouTube channel.
I will also utilize Discord heavily, which will be made available to paid subscribers of this Substack and serve as more of a “breaking news” central hub, and operate on a minute/hour scale rather than daily on Substack. I truly believe the Discord channel, which is searchable, is a game-changer and something paid subscribers will feel they get tremendous value from. In fact, the Discord is already being used, but just has not been unveiled to all of our subscribers yet. Announcements will be made in due time.
But as for the Xi’an cancellation, I didn’t see it reported much elsewhere, so I took some time out to fire up a Substack post for the first time in a while. Thanks for your patience during this off-season transition period.
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