Experts on crowd crush at concerts
In early November, there was a tragedy at the Astroworld Festival in Houston when ten people died from a crowd crush. The incident has raised questions about safety in concerts.
Deaf and hard of hearing people who enjoy going to concerts may be at increased risk of crowd crush because the access/interpreting areas are usually located close to the stage.
I will share three video clips from experts on this topic. The first is from Dr. IV Mirus, a Coda emergency room doctor, the second from Matt Maxey, an ASL performer and interpreter, and the third from Amber Galloway Gallego, who is also an ASL interpreter that specializes in concerts and music festivals.
We’ll start with Dr. Mirus, who will explain what happens in a crowd crush and how to stay safe if it happens.
Dr. IV Mirus:
Many people are curious about what happened at the concert and why people died. How did that happen? To fully understand what happened, you have to understand the concept of “crowd crush”. That’s a well-studied phenomenon that has happened repeatedly in history. We need to study and prepare to figure out how to prevent it. The point is, let’s imagine you are standing in the middle of a one square meter. That’s it. If there’s one person there, there’s plenty of room. If there’s two or three people, it feels like there’s limited space but there’s still a comfortable amount of room to move around. If more than five, six, or seven people are all in one square meter, what happens? The crowd itself won’t act like there are individual people anymore. What happens is that the crowd's behavior is very similar to water, fluid like a wave. They can’t control it. So what happens if you have the stage here and a large crowd surrounding it? The front area near the stage is very crowded, right? Then it becomes more spread out with not a lot of people in the back area. When the singer started performing, people in the back tried to move closer and closer to the stage area. What happened here is that people kept pushing the crowd closer and closer to the stage, just like a big wave. That caused high pressure against those in the front. They became compressed without any space. So what happened at this concert is that some of these people who were pushed against too tightly by other people couldn’t breathe, causing them to pass out, and unfortunately pass away. The problem is even though the people in the front were screaming for help, the people in the back didn’t understand what was happening because the crowd was acting like a wave, pushing closer and closer to the people in the front. That’s the problem. So we have to limit the number of people who can attend, and set up rails to stop that wave from happening. If you find yourself being crushed by people and it’s too tight, and you’re stuck, usually by that time it’s too late because it’s too crowded. What can you do? One of two things. First, you want to try to make some space and protect your body and lung area to give yourself room to breathe more easily. Also, when the wave starts from behind and you feel yourself moving and you can’t stop it, go for it. Don’t try to stop. What might happen is you might fall if you try to push back, because that’s dangerous. Go ahead and let the crowd push you, then when the wave stops, look for an exit either on your left or right and try to go through it. Don’t walk towards the stage or walk backwards.
Alex: Thank you for explaining. Next is Maxey on some of his experiences and advice from working in concerts.
Matt Maxey:
I want to share some comments about what happened at Astroworld. That’s an incredibly sad situation. What can you do to prevent that from happening again? Usually, when I was working as a Deaf interpreter, I typically communicated with security to let them know I’m Deaf and that my group is Deaf for them to be aware and to make sure they keep that in mind. If something does happen, they know to communicate with us. Secondly, I always know where the emergency exits are. I’ll go and enjoy the show, yes, but I always know where to escape if needed. Always make sure you’re aware of your surroundings. Third, wear the right shoes. There have been many different situations where if I’m wearing flip flops or sandals it'll cause problems. Wear athletic shoes, so that way if you need to run you’ll already be ready instead of scrambling around. You don’t want that. That’s my advice. I haven’t been in a situation where I’ve it’s very dangerous or felt scared. I’ve had enjoyable experiences so far, but you can’t be too safe. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. That’s my advice. Stay safe, and enjoy the music, but stay alert.
Alex: Thank you, Maxey for that insight.
[Sponsored Video from Convo: https://www.convorelay.com/download ]
Alex: Now, here is a video from Gallego on her experiences with working in rowdy concerts.
Amber Galloway Gallego:
Back then there was a huge festival with a band called Rage Against the Machine. They usually had a lot of - their songs were really about protesting the government, the “machine”, and they often fought back. Their show was the most traumatizing one I’ve been to, I think. When the show started, it was evening and when the show started the crowd was too tight. We had Deaf people there, but people started pressing against us as more people joined the crowd from the back. People were fighting people, and people were falling. It was really a very, very dangerous area for Deaf and hard of hearing people because there was security who had to move all the people. I saw people’s legs break, I saw some sprain their feet with their foot hanging, and I saw blood all over people’s faces. But the worst thing is people started to rush our stage for the interpreter, so people were trying to climb up onto the stage. The singer himself became angry and started yelling. During that time, my team had to hold my legs and we had to sit on the interpreter’s platform. Then we held each other while signing, because there were too many people in the crowd. Deaf people had a security gate around us, and then those security guards pulled people over the gate. The Deaf people were looking back and forth between that and the show the whole time. We also had to warn people while interpreting. It was really bad. I was shocked. During that show, the lead singer stopped the show four times because it was out of control. It was horrendous. He said if you don’t stop, people are getting seriously injured. Stop. They threatened to cancel their show and warned the crowd. The fourth time, He said “Everybody stop” and wanted the entire crowd to stop and take a step three feet back, because too many people were getting hurt in the back. The whole crowd took three steps back, and they actually did move back. Then they had more room to move around and they could survive and breathe. Wow. I’m often worried about that. I worry about where our Deaf area is and if it’s safe. Oftentimes, what we do is we have security by the mojo (metal barrier). It really feels impossible to break open, then there’s a bike rack around us so the Deaf people can be there then security stands behind the rack to help pull people over, but oftentimes Deaf and hard hearing people have to worry about that over and over again. Or we see it happen and we have to tell the security guard that there’s someone who needs to be saved. Often, we are interpreting and saving people and are the “eyes” for that area. We also have Deaf and hard of hearing people who monitor the station so they can help get people over. I think that worked out well for several of our festivals.
Alex: Thank you Gallego for explaining.
So, we see that it definitely can be dangerous to be in that kind of situation, but there are things that we can do to stay safe if we heed the advice from Dr. Mirus, Maxey, and Gallego.