Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren vog obam here. On November five, fans
Speaker 1: of rapper Travis Scott poured into Houston's Energy Park for
Speaker 1: the third annual Astro World Festival. As Scott took to
Speaker 1: the stage, a massive crowd surged forward, crushing nine concert
Speaker 1: goers to death and seriously injuring many others. The Astro
Speaker 1: World Festival is far from the first crowded concert to
Speaker 1: turn fatal. Similar tragedies occurred just for example, in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine at a concert by The Who, and in
Speaker 1: at an a C d C show. These crowd disasters
Speaker 1: sadly are more frequent and deadlier at major pilgrimages and
Speaker 1: sporting events, but experts say they don't have to be.
Speaker 1: For the article, this episode is based on how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: spoke with Stephen Allen, a professional safety and security consultant
Speaker 1: and the founder of the UK crowd management agency Crowd Safety.
Speaker 1: He likens crowd management at a concert to piloting a
Speaker 1: passenger jet. The passengers on any commercial airline trust that
Speaker 1: the company has safety regulations in place, autopilot capability, back
Speaker 1: up engines, flotation devices, and emergency landing gear and but
Speaker 1: in accordance with Murphy's law, anything that can go wrong
Speaker 1: eventually will in a mass failure situation. Alan said, that's
Speaker 1: when you have a team on that flight deck, and
Speaker 1: for me, that's your show stop team. As the name suggests,
Speaker 1: the show stop team's job is to stop the show.
Speaker 1: When they give the signal, the house lights come up,
Speaker 1: filling the space with pure white light. The artists should
Speaker 1: then instruct the crowd that there has been an incident,
Speaker 1: not to panic, and to proceed to the exits. It's
Speaker 1: a strategy designed to let the often inebrated crowd know
Speaker 1: unambiguously that the party is over. The tricky part is
Speaker 1: knowing when or whether to send the show stops signal.
Speaker 1: One of the most important components of the job, according
Speaker 1: to Alan, is being able to spot a potentially dangerous
Speaker 1: situation when it arises, and part of that involves familiarity
Speaker 1: with different types of concert etiquette. Un knowing, for example,
Speaker 1: that you're more likely to encounter a mosh pit at
Speaker 1: a punk show than a Dolly Parton concert. Then there's
Speaker 1: recognizing that even in rowdy crowds, most mash pits are
Speaker 1: relatively safe Alan explained that they've got their own rules
Speaker 1: and they know what they're doing, but what you're looking
Speaker 1: for is that sign of distress in their faces. When
Speaker 1: a crowd starts to move in a frenzy, things can
Speaker 1: quickly take a turn for the dangerous. The force of
Speaker 1: a rushing crowd can exceed a thousand pounds that's four
Speaker 1: and fifty kilos, which is great enough to bend steel.
Speaker 1: Folks trapped in the middle of the crush can have
Speaker 1: the air forced from their lungs, or if they're knocked
Speaker 1: to the ground, can be trampled under foot by the crowd.
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen nineties, crowd safety researcher John J.
Speaker 1: Frewin developed an easy acronym for the four elements to
Speaker 1: monitor in a potential crowd disaster situation. It's called FIST
Speaker 1: that stands for force, information upon which the crowd acts,
Speaker 1: space involved, and time or the duration of the incident.
Speaker 1: Frewin wrote that if one of these elements seems off,
Speaker 1: say a person falls and doesn't get back up, the
Speaker 1: show should stop. As a result, the security team must
Speaker 1: be constantly scanning for people making involuntary movements or adopting
Speaker 1: uncomfortable body language. People climbing or trying to over the
Speaker 1: front stage barrier NonStop is another sure sign to stop
Speaker 1: the show. The biggest danger, according to Alan, is crowd collapse,
Speaker 1: when a group of people falls down and the people
Speaker 1: behind them continue to surge forward. He said, Thankfully, it's
Speaker 1: a rare occurrence. The problem is when it does happen,
Speaker 1: it can be had a traffic Unfortunately, all of these
Speaker 1: occurred at astor World. So what went wrong? As the
Speaker 1: show went on? The dense, excited crowd grew increasingly panicked.
Speaker 1: Video footage shows one concert goer climbing up the stage
Speaker 1: scaffolding and attempting to notify a camera operator that people
Speaker 1: are dying. However, Scott performed his entire set. The production
Speaker 1: team never stopped the show. From the time security declared
Speaker 1: a mass casualty event until the concert actually ended. A
Speaker 1: full thirty seven minutes elapsed after World's fifty six page
Speaker 1: safety plan did not address a deadly crowd surge situation.
Speaker 1: An investigation by Houston Public Media subsequently revealed the document
Speaker 1: outlined safety procedures for several different scenarios, from lost persons
Speaker 1: to bad weather to a mass shooting event, but the
Speaker 1: potential for crowd crush stood out as a noticeable omission.
Speaker 1: Crowds Afty expert Paul Wertheimer, who reviewed the document after
Speaker 1: the fact, told Houston Public Media that's all you need
Speaker 1: to know about the plan. It didn't even address the
Speaker 1: crowd live nation. The concerts promoter indicated in a recent
Speaker 1: statement that it had released all surveillance footage to the
Speaker 1: Houston Police and Fire departments, who are currently investigating the incident.
Speaker 1: The company faces multiple lawsuits in the wake of the disaster,
Speaker 1: and Scott himself is being sued as well. Scott also
Speaker 1: canceled his headlining appearance at the Las Vegas Festival grounds
Speaker 1: on November In the end, according to Alan, the real
Speaker 1: tragedy is that this catastrophe could have been avoided with
Speaker 1: proper preparation. He said, I love live music. I love
Speaker 1: live events. That's why I got involved. Concerts can be
Speaker 1: managed safely, they can be run safely. It's about everyone
Speaker 1: accepting and understanding you know that this can actually happen.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article why Astro World
Speaker 1: was a recipe for deadly crowd crush on houstuffworks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by Joanna Thompson. Green Stuff is production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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