A Halloween festival in Nottingham had to be cut short over health and safety concerns.
The all-day Detonate Halloweeen festival at Nottingham Racecourse was brought to a close three hours early on Saturday due to overcrowding in one of its tents. Acts such as Kano and Wiley were on the bill at the sold out rap, grime and dance event.
Promoter Detonate has apologised to ticket-holders and released the following statement: “Our health and safety officer called for the show to be stopped due to concerns over people’s safety. The police supported the decision and helped us clear the site. The safety issue was due to the majority of people wanting to be in one tent, which caused large queues. When some of the surrounding fence was breached and crowds surged, action had to be taken to avoid people being injured.
“Flow of people is estimated based on capacities of each area, popularity of the acts, which are on at the same time in each arena, and dynamic assessments on the day. We surveyed our ticket holders in the lead up to the event by asking them which acts they most wanted to see, and used this data to programme set times.”
It continued: “Queuing systems were in place to prevent any one tent becoming overcrowded. In the case of The Boneyard, this meant that people inside didn’t leave, even when relatively small acts were on, as they could see it would take a while to get back in. As a result, there was very little flow of people in and out of that arena and long queues of people who were rightfully frustrated by not being allowed inside the tent. When this situation worsened and started to pose a risk to people’s safety, the music was switched off.
“Closing just one tent wasn’t an option as it would have caused the same issues at other arenas. From then on we had no choice but to start a phased closure of the site.
“We are currently working out how we can compensate people and will update very soon.”
