2003: The Station nightclub
This is one of the most horrible incidents of festivals or concerts ever to go wrong, and thankfully since it occurred, we have not seen anything as devastating as the Station nightclub fire has been. In 2003, the Station nightclub hosted the rock band Great White for a concert when everything went wrong seconds into their opening song. The band’s manager set off pyrotechnics inside the closed club, which ignited the acoustic foam around the sides and the top of the drummer’s alcove.
Initially, people thought the fire, which spread out incredibly fast, was part of the set, but by the end of the band’s first song, they realized it was out of control. The band members escaped through the west side door and the people in the audience, despite there being four emergency exits started to flood towards the front door. There were 462 people in attendance, despite the club’s capacity being 404 and them not having fire sprinklers.
In the aftermath, 100 people had died in the fire and 230 suffered from non-fatal injuries, making it America’s most casualty ridden entertainment event in the last 20 years. In the fire, one of the band members also died, alongside the show’s MC.
2015: TomorrowWorld
Sometimes spinoffs aren’t the best idea and movies have proved that to us time and time again. However, you would think that with festivals it would be different. TomorrowWorld proved to us that maybe you shouldn’t organize a festival in a place you don’t know. The Belgian festival tried its hand at an American version which was held in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia, in 2015.
However, the weather and the site weren’t agreeable that day and the festival ended up being disappointing and riddled with problems. The lineup, which included big-name EDM DJs like David Guetta and Kaskade, with appearances from the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, attracted a lot of attendants.
Yet, the heavy rain was the start of all their problems: on the first day, the whole site became a mud pit in a matter of moments, and as a result, the organizer limited the shuttle service on day two in hopes they would limit the people attending. This just turned into a horror scenario for the people who weren’t camping at the site as Uber rates surged even 5.9 times due to high demand and hiking back was dangerous. By day three, the festival was opened only to the people on the grounds, but this didn’t stop others from outside to try to get in despite the horrible weather.
Needless to say, that was the first and last attempt TomorrowLand made at organizing an American spinoff of the festival.
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