is this one of those things that's standard operating procedure but sounds scary if you've never heard about it before?
The "let event continue if threat is not in their area" bit is definitely sus though
The “let event continue if threat is not in their area” bit is definitely sus though
Could also be a measure to not cause a mass panic and have more people getting trampled to death at the exits. Venue exits are some of the nastiest chokepoints at overbooked events.
OTOH, if you already have so many people in the place that they get squeezed to death in front of the stage, letting things go on seems like a bad option, too.
if people are getting crushed and there is no acknowledgment that creates a larger panic than if an artist on stage tells people to stand the fuck still and pick up anyone who falls. people aren't that dumb where they hear crush then immediately go as fast as possible to the exit; because they are already in the crush and know that will make it 10x worse. it only gets bad if its a fire or they feel like no one is helping
for example https://youtu.be/BXaGp2SIbeY?t=110
Yes, but they still were incompetent and had poor enough handling that a stampede occurred causing deaths instead of just dealing with them. If you run a lot of events where drugs, alcohol and crowds are common over a long enough period of time injuries and deaths become normal things you plan in advance for.
A one off event of someone overdosing doesn’t stop an entire festival, but it does shut down areas, emts get dispatched and the person is brought to medical where they are transported to a hospital based on symptoms.
What made this special is their incompetence and probably greed and cost cutting when it came to handling crowd dynamics actually killed people.
is this one of those things that’s standard operating procedure but sounds scary if you’ve never heard about it before?
Definitely. I work public safety for a very large art festival in the desert, and you never say "deceased" or "dead" or anything like that (including "drunk" or "high" or "tripping balls") over the radio. You don't want to cause a panic, and also you're not a doctor (or, if you are, you aren't operating in your capacity as a doctor), and you don't want to bias incoming experts with bad information. We train our volunteers to describe what they need and what they're seeing (e.g. "I need medical for a mid-30s participant who is unconscious and not breathing" or "I need help with a large late 50s male-presenting participant who seems disoriented and aggressive") when making radio calls, not to diagnose. It's very standard practice.
Who is actually in charge to stop a set if bad things are happening?
Was this a scenario that was planned for?
