The Who concert tragedy happened before I was even born. Being a huge fan of live music, I've always been interested in this story. I've gone to more concerts than I can count and I've fallen down plenty of times. I've fallen in crowds of people where my feet are not even touching the ground. I've had
people help me up, I've struggled to get up. There is really nothing fun about being pushed down in a huge crowd of people. Luckily for me, in those situations, people are pretty much expected to fall down. People help you up or let you pull yourself up on them. Bands stop shows to tell people to help people. That's how mosh pits work. (I don't go in mosh pits anymore-well, not real ones).
The Who tragedy was different. No one was expecting the chaos. No one was ready. No one was expecting waves of thousands of people to push through the doors. No one expected 11 people to die. No one even know how bad it was until AFTER the concert.
I'm thankful for crowd control.
From Cincinnati.com: (images also from Cincinnati.com)
But significant changes in the concert industry followed, locally and nationally.
The day after the concert, Paul Wertheimer, the city's first public information officer, volunteered to lead a task force on crowd control and safety. At 29, just two years older than the oldest victim, he says he was determined to make some good come of the tragedy.
The task force spent six months preparing a more than
90-page document, which contained more than 100 recommendations. The city had already enacted many of those in the weeks following the concert, including a ban on festival seating. It remained in place in Cincinnati for 25 years, except for when the city granted a controversial exemption for a 2002 Bruce Springsteen concert at U.S. Bank Arena.
In the hopes of attracting more big-name performers, the city permanently repealed the ban in August 2004. It has adopted the National Fire Protection Association's standards for festival seating, which put an end to the days when concert promoters and venues could pack as many people as possible into standing-room only spaces. Local law now dictates that festival seating must allow 9 square feet per person, and the number of such tickets sold varies depending on the stage setup, says U.S. Bank Arena spokesman Sean Lynn. Venues with festival seating also must submit written safety plans to public safety agencies for approval.
Just 1,500 general admission tickets were sold for the first concert to include festival seating after the city lifted the ban, an October 2004 performance by pop-punk band Green Day. Doors opened two hours before showtime, and general admission ticketholders entered the venue through a separate entrance. General admission tickets have been sold to nine other concerts at U.S. Bank Arena since then, running the musical gamut from Metallica to Taylor Swift.
I may not have been at The Who concert in 1979, but I was at the Green Day concert in 2005 and I had the "festival" style ticket. That was the most orderly line I have even been in. I'm talking-- one at time into the venue. Once you got in, you had to wait at the entrance to the floor. Then one at a time we had to walk in, and SIT DOWN on the ground until everyone was in. No one could push in front...no one could run or rush. After everyone was in, we could stand up and at that point, yeah...there was some pushing to the front, but it was nothing compared to any other show I've been to. It was calm.
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