A Hard Summer bummer at the Forum: 'How do you stop 500 people rushing the gate?'
Rowdy fans shut down what was supposed to be an all-night dance event in Inglewood. Full refunds are being offered.
Will Fan had sprung for VIP tickets to Saturday night's Hard Summer event at the
Forum in Inglewood. But before settling in for a night of dance music, Fan made
a trip to the bar.
Then the night went haywire. A back door of the VIP
section, where tickets began at $125, flew open and fans ran in from the parking
lot in what Fan described as a "stampede."
"We saw about 200 kids run
right through the bar area," said the 35-year-old Sherman Oaks resident. "It was
a little scary. I saw the bartender push one kid down, but everyone else just
ran around him. Eventually, security was able to stop more people from coming
in. But the kids ran out of the bar . . . and basically hopped over the balcony
and onto the floor. Then the music stopped."
The sold-out all-night Hard
Summer concert, which featured a lineup that included U.K. dance duo Underworld
and Canadian electronic rockers Crystal Castles, was halted at about 10:50 p.m.,
according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which cited "hazardous
life-safety things taking place inside the event."
Inglewood police
dispatched a riot unit, and by 1:25 a.m. Sunday, more than 17,000 attendees had
been sent home.
The Hard-brand dance events are the brainchild of
promoter and DJ Gary Richards, who said he's looking at a "seven-figure" loss
from the event's cancellation. Full refunds are being offered to ticket holders,
and all artists will be paid.
"We were teetering on the edge of thinking
things were getting out of control, and then all of a sudden those crashers came
in and started leaping from the lower bowl onto the floor," Richards said. "How
do you stop 500 people rushing the gate at the same time? You'd need military at
that point."
Videos uploaded to YouTube show fans jumping 12 to 15 feet from the balcony. Prija Cash, 27, feared a riot. The Costa Mesa resident was trapped between an underground room with a second stage and the Forum's main floor for about 30 minutes as crashers rushed the gates.
Tickets to the event were general admission, meaning fans weren't assigned a specific seat. The downstairs dance floor was full by 9 p.m., Cash said, leaving fans that came to dance, but wound up confined to balcony seats, frustrated.
"It was advertised as a dance party, and people wanted to dance," he said.
Underworld observed on its website that the mood inside the Forum went from a "good buzz" to an "uneasy" feeling relatively quickly, as fans ignored a barricade to rush the dance floor. The act wrote that it was advised by its security team to leave.
News spread on the Web that Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass suffered a concussion in a melee to get out of the venue, but the act’s U.K.-based manager, James Sandom, said via email that while the event was “a disaster,” reports of Glass’ injury were “not true.”
Richards said security had been beefed up
for the concert. "The Forum typically hires I think 200 security guards for
events," he said. "We had 320 guards. There were 36 Inglewood police officers
and nine fire inspectors. My partners had 10 to 15 meetings with those people to
go over and over the plan."
The Forum's general manager, Tina Suca,
stopped short of saying the venue would avoid dance acts but said "we're a fun
rock venue." Another Richards event is booked for Oct. 31, but it will be moved.
"We learned that the Forum is just not the right place for an event like
this," Richards said. "Knowing now that people will jump from balconies onto the
floor, the Forum is not good for us . . . My brother and I used to manage [metal
band] Slipknot back in the day, and those fans weren't doing that."
--Todd Martens & Scott T. Sterling
Photo: Sterling
Related: 'Potentially dangerous activities' cited in Hard Summer shutdown; full refunds offered
Related: Video: Electronic fest Hard Summer at the Forum shut down [Updated: 4 p.m.]