The Astroworld Festival Joins The List Of Historical Concert Tragedies

At least eight individuals are useless and plenty of extra injured after a crowd rushed the stage at rapper Travis Scott’s music pageant Astroworld in Houston.

Authorities are investigating the reason for the “mass casualty event,” which unfolded at an out of doors efficiency by Scott on the pageant on Friday night time.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner referred to as for regulation enforcement, pageant organizer Live Nation and the venue to elucidate “how the event got out of control leading to the deaths and injuries of several attendees.”

The deaths at Astroworld Festival recall to mind different uncommon however traumatic incidents at concert events and festivals through which crowding or different components contributed to harmful situations for some attendees.

November 2021: ABBA tribute live performance

The Astroworld incident comes simply days after two individuals died at a music occasion in Sweden.

As audiences waited in a live performance corridor close to Stockholm for an ABBA tribute live performance to begin on Tuesday night time, an aged man both jumped or fell down seven flooring and landed on two individuals beneath. He and one of many individuals he hit died, whereas the opposite was taken to a hospital with accidents.

The precise band, which on Friday launched its first new album in 4 many years, briefly delayed promotion of its extremely anticipated comeback tour in mild of the tragedy.

December 2016: Ghost Ship Fire

Candles, flowers and notes honor individuals who misplaced their lives within the Ghost Ship hearth in Oakland, Calif., in December 2016.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

On Dec. 2, 2016 a fireplace broke out at an underground digital music get together in an Oakland, Calif., warehouse-turned-artist collective generally known as the Ghost Ship. The hearth — the supply of which remains to be unknown — trapped individuals on a second ground, killing 36.

Officials later discovered that the constructing had no smoke detectors or sprinklers, and contained quite a few extension cords and huge portions of flammable supplies. Derick Almena, its main leaseholder, was sentenced to 12 years in jail earlier this 12 months — although will serve solely one-and-a-half years of in-home confinement, carrying an ankle monitor.

The metropolis of Oakland reached a $32.7 million settlement with hearth victims final 12 months. Of that quantity, $23.5 million went to households of people that died, and $9.2 million went to Sam Maxwell, who was the final particular person to flee the fireplace and suffered life-changing accidents.

August 2011: Indiana State Fair stage collapse

The stage collapsed simply earlier than Sugarland was scheduled to carry out on the Indiana State Fair on Aug. 13, 2011 in Indianapolis, Ind.

Seven individuals died and 58 had been injured when robust winds knocked steel scaffolding and stage gear right into a packed crowd on the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, the place audiences had been awaiting an out of doors efficiency by the nation duo Sugarland.

A storm with winds estimated between 60 and 70 miles per hour blew by way of the fairground, collapsing the stage simply minutes after organizers urged the group to hunt shelter. The catastrophe raised questions on security inspections of out of doors phases and whether or not authorities ought to have canceled the present sooner, as NPR reported on the time. It additionally left an enduring affect on survivors and victims’ households.

Two investigative reviews later discovered that the scaffolding was less than code and that the Indiana State Fair Commission didn’t have enough emergency plans in place. Lawyers representing injured survivors and victims’ members of the family reached a $50 million settlement with 19 corporations in 2014.

July 2010: Love Parade stampede

People mourn on the website of the Love Parade stampede on July 27, 2010 in Duisburg, Germany. Christof Koepsel/Getty Images

A stampede killed 21 individuals and injured greater than 500 on the 2010 Love Parade, a techno dance music pageant within the western German city of Duisburg.

After police closed the pageant grounds because of overcrowding, 1000’s of attendees converged in a single tunnel that served as its solely entrance and exit. Police tried to make use of loudspeakers to inform individuals getting into the tunnel to show round and depart within the different route.

“Something sparked a panic in the tunnel and chaos ensued, crushing many of the victims to death,” NPR reported on the time. City officers didn’t evacuate the location for concern of fueling extra panic, and plenty of unaware festival-goers continued partying for hours.

In the aftermath, critics and prosecutors accused police and occasion organizers of failing to correctly put together for such a big occasion in such a small house. A decade of authorized challenges ensued, with a German courtroom ending the manslaughter trial of three techno-music promoters in May 2020 with no verdict.

And the Love Parade — which originated as an impromptu get together in Berlin in 1989 — was instantly canceled perpetually.

February 2003: The Station nightclub hearth

Crosses mark the location of the Station nightclub hearth on May 10, 2006 in West Warwick, R.I. Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Crosses mark the location of the Station nightclub hearth on May 10, 2006 in West Warwick, R.I.Darren McCollester/Getty Images

The rock band Great White was enjoying a set at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. when their tour supervisor set off fireworks, which set the stage’s soundproofing foam ablaze. The constructing was shortly engulfed in flames, and 100 individuals died and greater than 200 had been injured.

Survivor Robert Riffe spoke to NPR about his expertise on the primary anniversary of the fireplace. He described the pyrotechnics setting the froth on hearth throughout the first few seconds of the present, because the band continued enjoying and plenty of viewers members thought it was a part of the efficiency. As he and his good friend made their means out, the temper within the crowd modified to one in all panic.

“We started heading for the door and it was pretty calm at first … and then I remember hearing somebody yell ‘Fire, fire, get out of here’ and I saw somebody throw a cup of water,” Riffe recalled. “And that’s when everybody started trying to flood out of the place at once, and the door just got jammed, people just pushing and shoving. You pretty much had no choice but to get stuck there in the door.”

The membership’s two house owners — brothers Jeff and Michael Derderian — and the band’s tour supervisor — Daniel Biechele — had been every charged with 200 counts of involuntary manslaughter. They every accepted plea offers, and Michael Derderian and Biechele went to jail. The Derderians shared their aspect of the story in a televised interview with CBS News simply final month.

Efforts to ascertain a memorial on the location of the membership took greater than a decade. Station Fire Memorial Park, a 1-acre park with gardens and granite monuments, was devoted to the victims of the fireplace in 2017.

June 2000: Pearl Jam Roskilde Festival stampede

Fans pay their respect as Patti Smith performs in Roskilde, Denmark on July 1, 2010 in reminiscence of the 9 individuals who died throughout a Pearl Jam live performance on the 2000 Roskilde Festival.
Jonas Vandall Ortvig/AFP by way of Getty Images

Fans pay their respect as Patti Smith performs in Roskilde, Denmark on July 1, 2010 in reminiscence of the 9 individuals who died throughout a Pearl Jam live performance on the 2000 Roskilde Festival.Jonas Vandall Ortvig/AFP by way of Getty Images

Nine individuals had been trampled to loss of life in a mosh pit throughout Pearl Jam’s efficiency on the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000.

Pearl Jam headlined the principle stage of that 12 months’s pageant after days of rain, which had made the bottom muddy and slippery. Fans rushed in the direction of the band because it took the stage, setting off a stampede. Pearl Jam canceled the remainder of their European tour.

Nine individuals had been trampled to loss of life in a mosh pit throughout Pearl Jam’s efficiency on the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000.

Pearl Jam headlined the principle stage of that 12 months’s pageant after days of rain, which had made the bottom muddy and slippery. Fans rushed in the direction of the band because it took the stage, setting off a stampede. Pearl Jam canceled the remainder of their European tour.

In the many years since, Pearl Jam members say they have met a few of the victims’ households and even change into shut with a few of them. The band launched an announcement in June 2020, on the stampede’s twentieth anniversary, providing their apologies and condolences to the victims, their family members and witnesses.

“Everyone failed to live up to what was needed in those hours before and in those days following the tragedy,” learn the assertion, written by guitarist Stone Gossard on the band’s behalf. “The festival, the media, us included. We retreated and became angry after many reports implied PJ was responsible. Our words were nothing to help at that point. We hid and hoped that it wasn’t our fault. We have been trying our best to unhide ever since.”

December 1979: The Who in Cincinnati

Debris litters the bottom in entrance of the doorways the place individuals had been trampled as they tried to enter Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum for a Dec. 3, 1979 live performance by The Who.
Bettmann Archive

Debris litters the bottom in entrance of the doorways the place individuals had been trampled as they tried to enter Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum for a Dec. 3, 1979 live performance by The Who.Bettmann Archive

Eleven individuals died in a stampede to see The Who in live performance at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum on the night time of Dec. 3, 1979. Hundreds of followers had gathered exterior the plaza early for first-come, first-serve pageant seating. When just a few doorways had been opened, the group swelled and pushed, making a deadly crush. (The tragedy prompted modifications in crowd management, with the town shortly outlawing pageant seating.)

“We held off by, you know, just holding ourselves up against doors, against the bars. We did anything we could do just to go ahead and protect ourselves because, you know, our feet were off the ground at points,” survivor John Hutchins, who was 17 on the time, informed NPR in 2019.

Four many years later, The Who introduced plans to carry their first Cincinnati live performance since that tragic day. Their present was initially deliberate for April 2020, however postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

May 1977: The Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire

A packed dinner crowd had been ready for singer John Davidson to take the stage on the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky., when a fireplace broke out, killing 165 individuals and injuring many others.

The website of the nightclub — and particularly, the previous Cabaret Room — has been dwelling to memorials ever since. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported in August that building would quickly begin on an assisted dwelling heart, flats and houses on the property.

May 1974: David Cassidy’s White City Stadium live performance

Fans pictured at David Cassidy’s live performance at White City Stadium in London on May 26, 1974, at which tons of had been injured in a crush.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The late singer and teenage heartthrob David Cassidy was performing on the White City Stadium in West London when the group surged towards the stage.

The New York Times reported on the time that the crush injured greater than 700 followers and killed one, 14-year-old Bernadette Whelan who died after sustaining a coronary heart assault and getting into a coma.

Whelan’s household stated they didn’t maintain Cassidy accountable, saying publicly that “Bernadette would not have liked us to blame him.”

December 1969: Rolling Stones at Altamont

Mick Jagger performs with The Rolling Stones as Hell’s Angels guard the stage, throughout the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on Dec. 6, 1969 on the Altamont Speedway close to Tracy, Calif.Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images

Dec. 6, 1969 is an notorious day in rock and roll historical past. That’s when the Rolling Stones headlined a free live performance on the Altamont Speedway in Northern California, in a present many hoped can be the West Coast equal of Woodstock.

But a lot much less funding and planning went into this occasion; for instance, a number of dozen members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club had been tasked with offering safety, and tensions between the bikers, bands and the group escalated all through the day.

A chaotic scene performed out in entrance of the stage throughout the Stones’ set, the place 18-year outdated Meredith Hunter brandished a gun and 21-year-old Hells Angel member Alan Passaro fatally stabbed him — simply 20 ft away from the place Mick Jagger was performing “Under My Thumb.” Passaro was later acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

 

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