1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:01,920 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:10,320 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:12,920 Speaker 1: a show that shines a light on the ups and 4 00:00:13,119 --> 00:00:18,800 Speaker 1: downs of everyday history. I'm Gabe Louizier, and in this episode, 5 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,759 Speaker 1: we're reflecting on a day when poor planning turned what 6 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:31,800 Speaker 1: should have been a fun event into a full blown tragedy. 7 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:38,559 Speaker 1: The day was December three, seventy nine. At a concert 8 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:42,080 Speaker 1: for the British rock band The Who, eleven people were 9 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:46,000 Speaker 1: crushed to death by a crowd of overeager fans trying 10 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:51,640 Speaker 1: to get inside Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum. The deadly incident was 11 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:56,600 Speaker 1: precipitated by the venue's general admission ticketing policy, known as 12 00:00:56,760 --> 00:01:01,360 Speaker 1: festival seating. Under this system, the best majority of seats 13 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:05,400 Speaker 1: were first come, first served. This led to a desperate 14 00:01:05,400 --> 00:01:09,319 Speaker 1: scramble to claim the best unreserved seats, and in the 15 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:14,240 Speaker 1: ensuing chaos, eleven fans lost their lives and many more 16 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:18,680 Speaker 1: were injured. According to the contract between the venue and 17 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:22,040 Speaker 1: the band, the majority of tickets had to be made 18 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:26,720 Speaker 1: available as general admission. The sales receipts for the Ohio 19 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:31,560 Speaker 1: concert show that nearly fifteen thousand general admission tickets were 20 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:35,800 Speaker 1: sold for ten dollars each. On the other hand, only 21 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:40,240 Speaker 1: about thirty five hundred tickets had been sold as reserved seating. 22 00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:44,759 Speaker 1: The difference in cost was just one dollar, and many 23 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:48,320 Speaker 1: concert goers would have surely paid the extra buck to 24 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:51,800 Speaker 1: avoid standing in a crowd for hours before the doors 25 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:56,600 Speaker 1: even opened. Festival seating was so unpopular that many other 26 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:59,920 Speaker 1: venues in the US had already abandoned it by the 27 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:04,440 Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies. The Riverfront Colosseum was one of the 28 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:09,880 Speaker 1: few holdouts. Remarkably, management had kept the system in place, 29 00:02:10,240 --> 00:02:13,840 Speaker 1: even though they had already witnessed the dangerous conditions it 30 00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:18,360 Speaker 1: could create. Two years before the Who concert, the venue 31 00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:21,480 Speaker 1: had hosted a show by led Zeppelin, with most of 32 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 1: the tickets sold being festival seating. As expected, a large 33 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:30,760 Speaker 1: crowd began to form several hours before showtime, and eventually 34 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,040 Speaker 1: it turned violent. In the end, dozens of fans were 35 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:40,200 Speaker 1: injured that day, and sixty people were arrested. The coliseum 36 00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:43,960 Speaker 1: should have taken notice and done away with festival seating, 37 00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:47,880 Speaker 1: just as their peers had done, but they didn't. The 38 00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:52,280 Speaker 1: Who concert on December third, nine seventy nine, was scheduled 39 00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,880 Speaker 1: to start at eight pm, with doors opening about an 40 00:02:55,880 --> 00:03:00,000 Speaker 1: hour before that. However, since they weren't able to rest 41 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,720 Speaker 1: are of good seats, general admission ticket holders had begun 42 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:08,119 Speaker 1: to gather outside the venue as early as noon. By 43 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:11,400 Speaker 1: three pm, the crowd had grown so large that the 44 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:15,720 Speaker 1: police were called in to keep order in the Colosseum's plaza. 45 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:19,320 Speaker 1: It was a cold winter day in Cincinnati, and as 46 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:22,919 Speaker 1: the hours dragged on and the temperature dropped, the freezing 47 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:27,880 Speaker 1: crowd grew restless. At around six fifteen, people at the 48 00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 1: back of the crowd began to push forward. This forced 49 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:33,760 Speaker 1: the people in front of them to do the same, 50 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:37,000 Speaker 1: and on and on, until the people at the front 51 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:40,400 Speaker 1: of the crowd were finally pushed up against the locked 52 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:45,560 Speaker 1: glass doors at the Colosseum's West gate. One police lieutenant 53 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:49,040 Speaker 1: suggested that the concert promoters opened the doors early for 54 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:52,560 Speaker 1: the safety of the crowd. However, he was told that 55 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:57,520 Speaker 1: there wouldn't be enough ticket takers on duty until seven pm. 56 00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,880 Speaker 1: As a result, the forward crush continued for over an 57 00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:05,320 Speaker 1: hour and a half until the doors were finally opened 58 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:10,160 Speaker 1: at seven oh five. According to concert goers, only four 59 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:14,160 Speaker 1: of the sixteen doors were opened, and two of those 60 00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:19,080 Speaker 1: were intermittently blocked by guards. This created a bottleneck of 61 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:24,400 Speaker 1: roughly eight thousand people. At seven twenty the crowd pushed 62 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,760 Speaker 1: forward so powerfully that one set of glass doors shattered. 63 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:32,599 Speaker 1: Other doors were then forced open by the crowd, and 64 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:36,760 Speaker 1: people began streaming through the plaza. For the next fifteen minutes. 65 00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:42,560 Speaker 1: Colisseum security consisted of a handful of guards with billie clubs, 66 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:46,560 Speaker 1: none of whom stuck around. Once things turned ugly, the 67 00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:49,440 Speaker 1: police were still on the scene, but they were so 68 00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:52,080 Speaker 1: outnumbered there was little they could do to stop the 69 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:57,240 Speaker 1: flow of people. At last, at about seven forty five pm, 70 00:04:57,279 --> 00:05:00,640 Speaker 1: the twenty five man police force began to work its 71 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:04,479 Speaker 1: way into the crowd. They quickly found the first of 72 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:09,800 Speaker 1: eleven concert goers who had died from asphyxiation. As more 73 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:13,680 Speaker 1: bodies were discovered, additional police were called to the scene, 74 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:18,599 Speaker 1: along with emergency medical services and the fire department. The 75 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:23,200 Speaker 1: whose manager, Bill Kurbish Lee, told the Cincinnati Fire Marshal 76 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:26,159 Speaker 1: that it would be dangerous to stop the concert because 77 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:30,800 Speaker 1: the fans inside might riot. The fire marshal agreed, as 78 00:05:30,839 --> 00:05:33,920 Speaker 1: did the city's mayor, so the promoters were told to 79 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:37,240 Speaker 1: go on with the show as scheduled. As for the 80 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:41,000 Speaker 1: band members, they weren't told what had happened until several 81 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:45,320 Speaker 1: hours later after their final encore. When they left the stage, 82 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:48,559 Speaker 1: Kurbish Lee took them into the tuning room and told 83 00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:51,680 Speaker 1: them that eleven people had just died before the show. 84 00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:57,120 Speaker 1: Three days after the concert, lead singer Roger Daltrey spoke 85 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:01,760 Speaker 1: of the incident, saying, quote, and actually we felt stunned 86 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:05,400 Speaker 1: and empty. We felt we couldn't go on, but you 87 00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:10,559 Speaker 1: gotta there's no point in stopping. In the aftermath, most 88 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:14,039 Speaker 1: people held the crowd responsible for the deaths instead of 89 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:18,080 Speaker 1: the promoters, whose negligence had created the unsafe conditions that 90 00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:22,840 Speaker 1: led to those deaths. The coroner's office echoed the idea, 91 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:27,159 Speaker 1: listing the cause of death as quote suffocation due to 92 00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 1: accidental mob stampede. Local TV stations followed suit, depicting the 93 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:37,039 Speaker 1: concert goers as a drug crazed mob. But according to 94 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,680 Speaker 1: survivor Mark Helmcamp, the majority of the people in the 95 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:45,800 Speaker 1: crowd weren't perpetrators of violence. They were prisoners trapped in 96 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:49,400 Speaker 1: place by a sea of heaving bodies that compressed them 97 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:53,360 Speaker 1: on all sides. As he put it, quote, there were 98 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:57,279 Speaker 1: too many people and just two doors open. It was 99 00:06:57,320 --> 00:07:03,000 Speaker 1: a slow squeeze, not a stampeded. Promoters across the country 100 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:06,920 Speaker 1: recognize the role that festival seating played in the tragedy. 101 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:11,240 Speaker 1: The city of Cincinnati took their advice and quickly outlawed 102 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 1: festival seating at all of its concert venues. That ban 103 00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:19,960 Speaker 1: was eventually overturned decades later in light of improved crowd 104 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,880 Speaker 1: control measures. Despite a more serious approach to crowd control, 105 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:31,000 Speaker 1: deadly incidents still occur at concerts and festivals with alarming frequency. 106 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:35,080 Speaker 1: In each case, they serve as sobering reminders that there 107 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 1: are much worse things than having a bad seat. I'm gay, 108 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,880 Speaker 1: Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little more about 109 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:48,280 Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even 110 00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:51,680 Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and 111 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:56,120 Speaker 1: Instagram at t d I HC Show, and if you 112 00:07:56,160 --> 00:07:59,360 Speaker 1: have any feedback or suggestions you'd like to share, you 113 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:02,160 Speaker 1: can also write to us at this Day at I 114 00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:06,440 Speaker 1: heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing 115 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:09,280 Speaker 1: the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you 116 00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:12,880 Speaker 1: back here again tomorrow for another Day in History class. 117 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:24,480 Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio visit the I 118 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:27,200 Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to 119 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:28,000 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.