The causes and prevention of serious crowd injury and fatalities at outdoor music festivals

Crowds occur frequently in modern society. A major sporting or entertainment event can attract tens of thousands of avid fans. Usually, these large gatherings of people occur without serious problems. Occasionally, however, the combination of inadequate facilities and deficient crowd management results in injury and death. Outdoor music festivals (OMFs) are increasingly common events on the summer entertainment landscape for young people around the world. Attending these OMFs is associated with an increased risk of injury and, in extreme cases, death. A considerable proportion of these risks can be attributed to high-risk behaviour in the general admission or standing room only areas in front of the stages, or ‘mosh pits’. During the ten year period from 1992 to 2002, 66, 787 people have suffered significant injury and 232 people have died at 306 outdoor music concerts around the world. Fatality data over a longer period (1974 to 2003) indicates that at least 136 fatal incidents at concert events have not been scientifically explained. Forty one (41) of these involved persons who died in front of a concert stage. Crowd incidents show different types of group motivation. In some cases there is an interruption of a simple traffic process such as exiting a stadium or a passenger conveyor, resulting in a critical crowd pressure point. Others fall into the two general behavioural categories of either a flight response or a craze. Flight occurs where people experience either a real or perceived threat. Frequently mislabelled as panic, a closer investigation usually shows that flight was a reasonable group reaction under the perceived circumstances. A mass craze is a competitive rush to obtain some highly valued objective. Such group behaviour is created where participation in an event, or viewing of a public personage, is intensively promoted. General admission events and so called “festival seating” concerts, in particular, cause competition for favourable seats or standing positions close to entertainers.