So Christ Embassy worshippers are mad that they paid N1k for their New Year crossover service?

Like he's been doing for the last few years, since 2010 I
think, pastor Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy made his
followers pay N1,000 each as gate fee to attend the
Church's New Year Crossover service which held at their
Ikeja church HQ on Dec. 31st, 2014. The ones who could
afford to buy the gate pass were allowed in, the ones
who couldn't were asked to go back. Now, some of them
are mad.
In 2013, the church said the reason they did this was to
reduce the number of people who come for the annual
service, because the venue couldn't handle the thousands
that showed up, many or whom were not even members of
the church. So, it was their own way of controlling the
crowd.
So the HQ sitting capacity is about 20k, and let's say half
of the crowd paid N1k each, that would be about N10m
for the church from just gate fee. Some say it's
extortion, that no church should ever ask for money for
members to attend, some say they understand why the
church would insist on this. What do you think? Is crowd
control a reasonable excuse to collect gate fee at a
church?