"Hostage taker" is lucky someone didn't lay a smackdown on him.

I've been in this type of event, both as a bad guy and as a good guy. Much more fun to be a baddy TBH. We were all on the same sheet of music, surrounding people were warned and/or recruited for roles. Even then, we had "umpires" in full uniform stationed around to tell people what went on.

Still there are failures. Most notably, a police officer shot two soldiers going through SF training, not knowing they were playacting, and they didn't know he wasn't playacting. A tragedy which caused several lawsuits and many rules and procedures being changed.

The best laid plans... and it's even worse when you plan and don't tell anyone.