Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vog obam here. On November five, fans of rapper Travis Scott poured into Houston's Energy Park for the third annual Astro World Festival. As Scott took to the stage, a massive crowd surged forward, crushing nine concert goers to death and seriously injuring many others. The Astro World Festival is far from the first crowded concert to
turn fatal. Similar tragedies occurred just for example, in nineteen seventy nine at a concert by The Who, and in at an a C d C show. These crowd disasters sadly are more frequent and deadlier at major pilgrimages and sporting events, but experts say they don't have to be. For the article, this episode is based on how Stuff Works, spoke with Stephen Allen, a professional safety and security consultant and the founder of the UK crowd management agency Crowd Safety.
He likens crowd management at a concert to piloting a passenger jet. The passengers on any commercial airline trust that the company has safety regulations in place, autopilot capability, back up engines, flotation devices, and emergency landing gear and but in accordance with Murphy's law, anything that can go wrong eventually will in a mass failure situation. Alan said, that's when you have a team on that flight deck, and
for me, that's your show stop team. As the name suggests, the show stop team's job is to stop the show. When they give the signal, the house lights come up, filling the space with pure white light. The artists should then instruct the crowd that there has been an incident, not to panic, and to proceed to the exits. It's a strategy designed to let the often inebrated crowd know unambiguously that the party is over. The tricky part is knowing when or whether to send the show stops signal.
One of the most important components of the job, according to Alan, is being able to spot a potentially dangerous situation when it arises, and part of that involves familiarity with different types of concert etiquette. Un knowing, for example, that you're more likely to encounter a mosh pit at
a punk show than a Dolly Parton concert. Then there's recognizing that even in rowdy crowds, most mash pits are relatively safe Alan explained that they've got their own rules and they know what they're doing, but what you're looking for is that sign of distress in their faces. When a crowd starts to move in a frenzy, things can quickly take a turn for the dangerous. The force of a rushing crowd can exceed a thousand pounds that's four and fifty kilos, which is great enough to bend steel.
Folks trapped in the middle of the crush can have the air forced from their lungs, or if they're knocked to the ground, can be trampled under foot by the crowd. In the early nineteen nineties, crowd safety researcher John J. Frewin developed an easy acronym for the four elements to monitor in a potential crowd disaster situation. It's called FIST that stands for force, information upon which the crowd acts, space involved, and time or the duration of the incident.
Frewin wrote that if one of these elements seems off, say a person falls and doesn't get back up, the show should stop. As a result, the security team must be constantly scanning for people making involuntary movements or adopting uncomfortable body language. People climbing or trying to over the front stage barrier NonStop is another sure sign to stop the show. The biggest danger, according to Alan, is crowd collapse, when a group of people falls down and the people
behind them continue to surge forward. He said, Thankfully, it's a rare occurrence. The problem is when it does happen, it can be had a traffic Unfortunately, all of these occurred at astor World. So what went wrong? As the show went on? The dense, excited crowd grew increasingly panicked. Video footage shows one concert goer climbing up the stage scaffolding and attempting to notify a camera operator that people are dying. However, Scott performed his entire set. The production
team never stopped the show. From the time security declared a mass casualty event until the concert actually ended. A full thirty seven minutes elapsed after World's fifty six page safety plan did not address a deadly crowd surge situation.
An investigation by Houston Public Media subsequently revealed the document outlined safety procedures for several different scenarios, from lost persons to bad weather to a mass shooting event, but the potential for crowd crush stood out as a noticeable omission. Crowds Afty expert Paul Wertheimer, who reviewed the document after the fact, told Houston Public Media that's all you need to know about the plan. It didn't even address the
crowd live nation. The concerts promoter indicated in a recent statement that it had released all surveillance footage to the Houston Police and Fire departments, who are currently investigating the incident. The company faces multiple lawsuits in the wake of the disaster,
and Scott himself is being sued as well. Scott also canceled his headlining appearance at the Las Vegas Festival grounds on November In the end, according to Alan, the real tragedy is that this catastrophe could have been avoided with proper preparation. He said, I love live music. I love live events. That's why I got involved. Concerts can be managed safely, they can be run safely. It's about everyone accepting and understanding you know that this can actually happen.
Today's episode is based on the article why Astro World was a recipe for deadly crowd crush on houstuffworks dot com, written by Joanna Thompson. Green Stuff is production of I heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.