Crowd controlled? (Festivals in general)

Member Name: oopsy-daisy

Product:	Festivals in general
Date:	04/07/01 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Music , entertainment , and soooo much fun.

Disadvantages: flying bottles of piss , getting crushed and dehydration.

Recently, in the past few years, there have been cases of people being severely injured or even killed at gigs and festivals. Roskilde Festival accounted 16 deaths of fans during a Pearl Jam gig who were crushed against the bar at the front of the mosh. Also a 15 year old American girl recently died when she attended a Limp Bizkit gig last year.
Many people attribute these deaths to a certain kind of music. Whether punk, ska ,metal or rock these genres of music are accused, due to the active,rigourous nature of the crowd. The mosh, the bottles of piss being thrown , yes it's true that people get injured. However a recent tragedy at an A1 concert, saw three young girls die from being crushed and de-hydrated.Therefore proving that a crowd doesn't have to be made up of burly, strong, men in order for someone to get hurt.
Thre is no way that large festivals with capacity for 80,000+ people can control such a big audience yet they always seem to get the blame. Yes, the Festival organisers can always add more security staff to the perimetre of the crowd and mosh pit, but this still will not help the single person who falls, right in the middle, and can't get back up.They could also use hoses to cool the crowd down but there is no gurantee that every person will be able to be reached.
Festivals can be dangerous, but there aren't many ways that you can stop people pushing forward at the front of the crowd.At Reading Festival 2000 there was an incident of crowd control.During The Foo Fighters set there were many people getting crushed at the bar at the front of the stage. I think the Foo Fighters set a prime example of how a band can influence the crowd to help others. Dave Grohl simply said that people were getting crushed over his mic, and told the crowd to step back. Obviously, to the idle fan halfway back who can't see that people are being injured, this could be annoying stopping the band mid-flow. But, slowly it worked. The ba
nd refused to play the rest of the set until there was space at the front, and those injured could get aid or be lifted out. This is one way to control a festival crowd.
I am now a firm believer that the bands themseves can influence a crowd, especially at their own gigs, due to the fact that the majority of the crowd are there to hear them play, and if they stop they will take notice.In the event of Roskilde it was too late before Pearl Jam could ask the audience to move back. But with approprate security alerts the bands timimg could be improved vastly to help people if there is any sign of trouble.
I myself am a small built 19 yr old. In politically correct britain this shouldn't make much difference, but, when it comes to a festival it does. I am not as strong, well-built or as tall as some of the male of even female crowd members, which means at some point i'm gonna get crushed.When i was younger i didn't think i would , i was pig-headed and just wanted to be in the mash. I ended up falling over, being stood on and getting hit( with-out being able to hear the music, which is what i was there for. How stoopid was i?). Now i'm quite happy to stand somewhere in the middle just outside the mosh , it's good as i can see whats going on in the crowd, but i can listen to the music with-out being worried that i'm gonna get sandwiched between two sumo wrestlers.
You always get a few nutters in the mosh ( which if the band is poo sometimes provides the entertainment) so just make sure you can handle yourself, or are in a group of friends, coz your less likely to get hurt, and more likely to get attention from people who can help.
Oh....one final note, if you ever see a short girl with black eyes being trodden on chances are it'll be me, so help me up god dammit!

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