"On the 3rd of December, 1979, English rock band The Who were scheduled to play a concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio..."
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MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory
► "Emotional Aftermath" by Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
CORRECTIONS:
► When attributing a quote in this video, I misspelled Roger Daltrey's name. Instead of "Daltry", the attribution should read "Daltrey".
#Documentary #History #TrueStories
As always, THANK YOU to all my Patreon patrons: you make this channel possible.
https://www.patreon.com/fascinatinghorror
SOCIAL MEDIA:
► Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrueHorrorTales
► TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fascinatinghorror
► Suggestions: hello@fascinatinghorror.co.uk
MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory
► "Emotional Aftermath" by Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions
CORRECTIONS:
► When attributing a quote in this video, I misspelled Roger Daltrey's name. Instead of "Daltry", the attribution should read "Daltrey".
#Documentary #History #TrueStories
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00On the 3rd of December, 1979, English rock band The Who were scheduled to play a
00:17concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thousands of general
00:23admission ticket holders gathered outside the venue hours before the
00:27scheduled start of the concert, but were kept waiting outside by organizers while
00:32final arrangements were made for the night's performance. When the go-ahead
00:36was finally given to let the waiting crowd inside, only two doors were opened.
00:42Two doors for more than 8,000 people. By the time The Who actually did take to
00:50the stage that evening 11 of their fans would be dead. The Who were, at the time
00:58of the disaster, undertaking the US leg of a world tour. Tickets to see them were
01:04in incredibly high demand. 18,348 tickets were put on sale for the concert at the
01:12Riverfront Coliseum, and every single one of them was sold in under two hours.
01:19As with many concerts at the time, the majority of these tickets were sold on
01:24a festival seating basis. Another way of describing this might be first-come,
01:30first-served. Under the festival seating system general admission ticket holders
01:35could pick their seats within an assigned area, and so those who entered
01:40the venue first would generally get a better view than those who came later.
01:45This system was not without its problems. When seating wasn't assigned
01:51many people would sit in the aisles for a better view, sometimes completely
01:56blocking them. Minor crushes were also common, as fans would often gather
02:01outside venues hours before concerts began and then rush the gates when they
02:06opened in a race for the best seats in the house. On the 3rd of December 1979
02:14this is exactly what happened. Many ticket holders had been told by a local
02:19radio station that they would be granted admission from 3 p.m., and so arrived a
02:25few hours before that at 1 p.m. They gathered in the car park outside the
02:30Riverfront Coliseum, smoking, drinking, socializing, and waiting for the doors to
02:35open... but the doors did not open. As time passed the crowd swelled. At around
02:453 p.m. police were called in to manage the growing number of people outside the
02:50venue. By most estimates there were several thousand people present at this
02:55time, with more arriving every hour. The doors remained shut. As the hours wore on
03:03the crowd concentrated around the closed doors, poised for the moment when
03:08they would finally be opened. By 7 p.m., four long cold hours after many in the
03:17crowd had been told they would be granted admission, some fans were losing
03:21patience. Small crushes developed around several of the doors, with people pinned
03:27in place against the glass, unable to move as those behind them pushed blindly
03:32forwards. The venue, however, wasn't ready. Organizers didn't have enough staff
03:40available to act as ticket takers, and also wanted to allow the band time for
03:46one final sound check before the concert began. This sound check, according to some
03:53witness testimony, played a fateful role in what happened next. From outside the
03:59venue it may have sounded as though the concert was beginning, something which
04:03caused patrons at the back of the crowd to start pushing. At roughly the same
04:09time two doors on the right side of the main entrance were opened. The result was
04:15an intense crush around these doors. Staff from the Coliseum tried to hold
04:21the crowd back while they doggedly checked tickets. The crowd compacted,
04:26creating not a stampede but a slow, steady squeeze which lasted around half
04:32an hour. Reports of the crush note that people were pressed up against the glass
04:37doors, or picked up and carried by the sheer pressure of the crowd. Survivors
04:45report feeling that they were trampling on fallen concertgoers, but being so
04:49tightly pinned in place they were unable to do anything but scream for those
04:54further back in the mass of people to stop pushing. One survivor recalls quite
05:00vividly being stuck, standing in a crowd so tight that everyone around him was
05:05straining upwards, mouths open, just trying to breathe. The heat of bodies
05:11created a visible vapor cloud over the densely packed throng of people. The
05:18police, watching from outside the venue, refused to help... in part, perhaps, because
05:24they believed the crowd to be composed largely of hysterical drug users. Several
05:29survivors report escaping the crush and running to the police to beg them to
05:34take action, only to be reprimanded and told to refrain from telling the police
05:39how to do their job. In any event, no help was forthcoming from the
05:46authorities... but what about the staff within the venue? It appears that they
05:51didn't realize the magnitude of the crush until after most of the concertgoers
05:55had been admitted. Although several people died within minutes of the crush
06:00beginning, their bodies were held in a standing position by the pressure of the
06:05crowd. Only once the crowd cleared did the dead and injured become evident. Also
06:12revealed was a raft of shoes, wallets, clothing, and other personal effects that
06:18had been ripped from the bodies of those in the crush, along with thousands of
06:23bloody footprints. Indeed, some patrons would only later discover blood on their
06:29shoes. Management of the Riverside Coliseum assessed their options and
06:36decided to go ahead with the concert as planned, despite the carnage. Cancelling
06:42it, they feared, might result in another crush, as 18,000 angry patrons stormed
06:48out of the venue. While The Who took to the stage, the dead were removed from the
06:54scene and the seriously injured transported to hospital.
07:0011 people died as a result of the crush. They were 22-year-old Walter Adams Jr.,
07:0818-year-old Peter Bowes, 21-year-old Connie Sue Burns, 15-year-old Jacqueline
07:16Eccle, 19-year-old David Heck, 27-year-old Teva Rae Ladd, 15-year-old Karen Morrison,
07:2719-year-old Stefan Preston, 20-year-old Philip Snyder, 17-year-old Brian Wagner,
07:35and 21-year-old James Wormuth.
07:41The Who were not told what had happened until after they finished playing. By
07:46all accounts they were immensely distraught. They considered cancelling
07:51the rest of their tour, but realized that if they did so they would never play
07:55again. Instead they dedicated their next concert to the fans that had died with
08:02the words, we lost a lot of family last night. This shows for them. Interviews
08:09show that even decades later members of the band are still haunted by the
08:14disaster. The response to the tragedy from the wider world was, at times,
08:21unsympathetic. Some commentators blamed the victims. The crowd, they alleged, had
08:28been drunk and violent, and had behaved like animals. The crush was initially
08:35reported as a stampede of drug-crazed youths, a description which many who had
08:40been involved in the incident hotly disputed. As the disaster was
08:47investigated it became clear that the use of festival seating had played a key
08:51role in events, and, moreover, that there had been many warning signs of an
08:57impending tragedy. There had, for example, been minor crushes at several previous
09:03concerts. The venue had been repeatedly criticized for fire safety violations,
09:09for overselling events, and for refusing to cooperate with the police in
09:14emergency situations. Many of these accusations were disputed by Coliseum
09:20management, who insisted that since the area immediately outside their doors was
09:25city property they really weren't responsible for what happened there.
09:31Further to this many people, including fire chiefs and city councillors, had
09:36criticized festival seating specifically, noting that the problem was
09:40getting worse over time as concertgoers turned up at the venue earlier and
09:45earlier. Again Coliseum management waved away concerns, claiming that concertgoers
09:51liked festival seating and that as such it should remain. As a result of the Who
10:00concert crush some action was finally taken. Cincinnati, along with several
10:06other cities, banned festival seating and now limits the number of tickets that
10:11may be sold for an event to guarantee a certain amount of space per person
10:15inside a venue. News of the disaster helped to propagate these measures, and
10:21unassigned seating at rock concerts is now almost never permitted. The
10:27Riverfront Coliseum has greatly improved its safety record and rebranded. It is
10:33now known as the Heritage Bank Center. More than 35 years after the disaster a
10:41memorial marker was installed on site bearing the names of those who died. The
10:48text on the marker gives a brief summary of events that transpired on the 3rd of
10:52December 1979. Eleven concertgoers, trapped in a crush of people, died at the
11:00Southwest Plaza entrance to the Riverfront Coliseum waiting to see the
11:05Who. Many others were injured in what was the deadliest concert tragedy in United
11:11States history. The tragedy spurred passage of a crowd safety ordinance
11:17which became a model for the world.
11:30you