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The Who concert disaster
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The Who concert disaster
The Who concert disaster was a crowd disaster that occurred on December 3, 1979, when the English rock band the Who performed at Riverfront Coliseum (now known as Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Amidst confusion about the concert's start time, not all entry doors to the coliseum opened; a rush of concert-goers into the few open doors resulted in the deaths of 11 people.
The Who were in the midst of the United States leg of their 1979 world tour, which began in September with a total of seven dates split between the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey and Madison Square Garden in New York City. The tour was their first following the 1978 death of drummer Keith Moon and featured former Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones as Moon's official replacement. The band then took some time off, and resumed the tour on November 30 at the auditorium of the Detroit Masonic Temple. The Cincinnati concert was the third show played in this portion of the tour, after a concert the night before at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena.
The concert sold out—18,348 tickets in total.
People were originally told through a radio station that General Admission ticket holders would be admitted at 3:00 p.m. and therefore a sizable crowd formed by 5:00 p.m. Although all the doors were expected to be opened simultaneously, only two doors at the far right of the main entrance were finally opened. As concertgoers entered the arena through these two open doors, those waiting in front of all of the other doors began pushing forward again.
After a short period of waiting and then knocking on the doors and the glass next to the doors, the crowd assumed that none of the remaining doors would be opened. At about 7:15 p.m., the situation began to escalate. Conflicting reports suggested that concertgoers could hear either a very late soundcheck or the Who's film Quadrophenia (1979), instead of an opening act. Either way, the crowd assumed that the Who were on earlier than scheduled.
At that point, the entire crowd surged and pushed toward the two doors that had been opened. This caused many people to get trampled, while some suffered more serious injuries. Eleven people were unable to escape the dense crowd pushing toward them and died by asphyxiation. Twenty-six other people reported injuries.
Fire officials advised Who manager Bill Curbishley to cancel the concert, but he convinced them to allow the show to continue to avoid further panic. The concert went as planned, with the band members not being told of the tragedy until after their performance. Years later, Who guitarist Pete Townshend recalled his feelings after the show; "I went through two phases. One was, of course, tremendous upset and concern. But the other was incredible anger that we had been performing while this was going on."
The following night, a lengthy segment on the tragedy aired on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite examining violence at rock concerts. At the Who's next concert in Buffalo on December 4, lead vocalist Roger Daltrey told the crowd: "We lost a lot of family last night. This show's for them." Years later, Townshend said he regretted leaving Cincinnati and continuing to tour, remarking on the Buffalo concert "We're in the wrong city. We're in Buffalo."
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The Who concert disaster
The Who concert disaster was a crowd disaster that occurred on December 3, 1979, when the English rock band the Who performed at Riverfront Coliseum (now known as Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. Amidst confusion about the concert's start time, not all entry doors to the coliseum opened; a rush of concert-goers into the few open doors resulted in the deaths of 11 people.
The Who were in the midst of the United States leg of their 1979 world tour, which began in September with a total of seven dates split between the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey and Madison Square Garden in New York City. The tour was their first following the 1978 death of drummer Keith Moon and featured former Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones as Moon's official replacement. The band then took some time off, and resumed the tour on November 30 at the auditorium of the Detroit Masonic Temple. The Cincinnati concert was the third show played in this portion of the tour, after a concert the night before at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena.
The concert sold out—18,348 tickets in total.
People were originally told through a radio station that General Admission ticket holders would be admitted at 3:00 p.m. and therefore a sizable crowd formed by 5:00 p.m. Although all the doors were expected to be opened simultaneously, only two doors at the far right of the main entrance were finally opened. As concertgoers entered the arena through these two open doors, those waiting in front of all of the other doors began pushing forward again.
After a short period of waiting and then knocking on the doors and the glass next to the doors, the crowd assumed that none of the remaining doors would be opened. At about 7:15 p.m., the situation began to escalate. Conflicting reports suggested that concertgoers could hear either a very late soundcheck or the Who's film Quadrophenia (1979), instead of an opening act. Either way, the crowd assumed that the Who were on earlier than scheduled.
At that point, the entire crowd surged and pushed toward the two doors that had been opened. This caused many people to get trampled, while some suffered more serious injuries. Eleven people were unable to escape the dense crowd pushing toward them and died by asphyxiation. Twenty-six other people reported injuries.
Fire officials advised Who manager Bill Curbishley to cancel the concert, but he convinced them to allow the show to continue to avoid further panic. The concert went as planned, with the band members not being told of the tragedy until after their performance. Years later, Who guitarist Pete Townshend recalled his feelings after the show; "I went through two phases. One was, of course, tremendous upset and concern. But the other was incredible anger that we had been performing while this was going on."
The following night, a lengthy segment on the tragedy aired on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite examining violence at rock concerts. At the Who's next concert in Buffalo on December 4, lead vocalist Roger Daltrey told the crowd: "We lost a lot of family last night. This show's for them." Years later, Townshend said he regretted leaving Cincinnati and continuing to tour, remarking on the Buffalo concert "We're in the wrong city. We're in Buffalo."
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