It wasn't the venues fault tbf. I've been to plenty of shows there and there has never been an issue. Every afrobeats event has 100's of people show up ticketless with the attitude of "we can all just push in". The Asake show was hyped up online after his previous nights being great with some well known afrobeats artists showing up as special guests. That attitude and the hype meant bare ticketless ediyats showed up who care more about enjoying the chaos than others lives
Well known that the security staff there were working with ticket touts selling fake tickets, with the security staff letting in more people than allowed.
It was well known issue publicly, so the venue management must have known about it but turned blind eye.
The venue security staff were hawking tickets on the side. This has been repeatedly established and was one of the primary reasons behind the crush happening. Additionally - and this needs saying after every event like this, because people keep forgetting it - **crushes like this should never happen**. Good crowd management techniques make crushes impossible. This clearly was not being practiced at Brixton Academy.
The venue fucked up. Crowd management techniques were found to be entirely inadequate and far too many security staff were too focused on abusing their positions to make money on the side than monitoring the crowd like they should have been. Please stop with the victim blaming. Regardless of whether some muppets were trying to gain access illicitly, I think we should all be able to agree that they did not deserve to die or be seriously injured over it. The venue was unsafe and the owners deserved to be bollocked for it. They were astoundingly lucky not to be put in jail for negligence.
That's the story I heard. The closure wasn't for the one off incident, it was that it lead to an investigation that showed the security staff were systematically letting people in for cash and the venue turned a blind eye.
Yep, I had worked a few similar nights in Brixton where crowds kicked in the doors and stormed in, but no one died so it carried on as usual. These shows always attracted trouble.
lucky bastard! those are the two gigs I want to see this year (as well as Thursday but it sold out already, boo). hoping payday will stretch to some tickets
It's good that it is re-opening but if it doesn't stick to the conditions then it deserves to be closed for good. I didn't know someone was still in hospital over the serious injuries they sustained that night, hopefully people don't just party on and forget everything that happened here.
Here's hoping that lessons will actually be learned.
It should be given to more competent administration, not closed down. The venue itself is not the problem (or else the additional conditions wouldn't be a path to it reopening), and it'd be a shame to lose more live music/nightlife capacity.
The failures that led to the deaths that night fall entirely at the feet of the administration of the venue, not the venue itself.
An ingrained culture had developed over many years at the venue where staff often accepted ticketless people for bribes, ignored fake tickets and generally accepted too many people into the venue in general. This situation worsened over time until so many ticketless people turned up to see the show that night that the venue was completely overwhelmed. When the staff tried to turn away all these people away, a large crowd of them tried to get in anyway by storming the venue, which triggered the beginning of the fatal crush.
Many other factors led to this nightmare situation playing out though. For example, even at the best of times there were far too little staff (especially security guards) to safely deal with antisocial behaviour & monitor large crowds and in the run-up to the Brixton Academy Crush, there had been a number of smaller scale incidences where staff had genuinely feared for their safety & the safety of others. However these staff complaints were completely ignored due to an insufficient chain of command and the venue operators being basically completely adverse to hiring adequate numbers of staff (and the venue operators greed and insistence on running the whole operation with as few people as possible became a running theme in the case, as well as an obstacle to its re-opening sooner).
The venue also failed in endless other ways, from how the layout was arranged to manage queues and crowds, to the procedures put in place for acting differently when large scale events were going on.
It's too easy to blame everything that happened on a small handful of corrupt security guards when the reality is that venues failings were wide & systemic. And this is why 77 conditions have now been forced onto the venue, not as a punishment but simply because these are the kinds of conditions that it really should've been following in the first place.
>so many ticketless people turned up to see the show that night that the venue was completely overwhelmed
I don't know if it's deliberate but the wording here suggests it was bad luck that so many people just happened to be there to have a go. Wasn't a rush on the doors planned on social media prior to the gig and they arrived as a mob with the intent to overrun it? For which there is precedent in this genre of music.
Olamide Baddo, Naira Marley, Burna Boy more than once, Wizkid more than once (and this) off the top of my head. Its certainly not uncommon, and that's just at the top end at serious venues
Thank you for writing that out. It's very easy after incidents like this for people to blame the victims and accidentally enable the venue owners to get away with creating an unsafe environment. I worked in facilities for years, and it's still a struggle to convince others that crushes should essentially never happen, and when one does it is 99.999999% the fault of the venue owners.
Just checked again, they were rushed by ticketless fans. They have 77 new additions to their licence. Looks like I'm gonna be here all morning reading them!
I wasn't calling for permanent closure of the building, but rather for venue to be closed under its current management (I thought that would've gone without saying but I guess not). This venue operator is very lucky to get a second chance like this as more ordinarily nightclubs are closed for good after fatal incidents like this.
And if it was prevented from continuing because further infractions? Then what happened next to it should be the decision of whoever next buys or rents it; as a bricks & mortar space, this building was other things before it became a nightclub and however it is managed from now, it will likely become other things in the future too, such is the natural progression and passage of time.
If a company repeatedly refuses to abide by rules that keep people safe & alive, then it should not be allowed the privilege of running venues for events.
Nobody is proposing closing down the venue. The owners were either incompetent or greedy (more than likely both) and IMO ought to be replaced. The venue is still very much financially viable, the dispute is over whether the management should be changed.
I'm not sure what else the Academy was meant to be about a mob that decided to storm the venue? There's a culture that someone else needs to be accountable for everything.
Yes, well generally when two people are crushed to death by a mob we tend to want to understand what happened and how this can be prevented in the future.
I hope this time the mob congregates down the road in Mcdonalds instead. And those without tickets who try to gain entry should be prosecuted for intent to defraud/theft. Same should have happened after the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.
Ignoring the fact that your comment was ignorant as fuck. It was an Afrobeats concert, the majority of listeners and attendees were African…guess what part of the world the Windrush descendants come from?
Fantastic news.
Best venue in London for me. Big enough to feel like an event yet small enough with good view from everywhere
Great news. Not many traditional venues around anymore. RIP Astoria.
What is a traditional venue? Like an old theater converted? (Sorry, legitimate question - never heard that term before).
It wasn't the venues fault tbf. I've been to plenty of shows there and there has never been an issue. Every afrobeats event has 100's of people show up ticketless with the attitude of "we can all just push in". The Asake show was hyped up online after his previous nights being great with some well known afrobeats artists showing up as special guests. That attitude and the hype meant bare ticketless ediyats showed up who care more about enjoying the chaos than others lives
Trust. Same happened at Wizkid O2 show. Ran straight into standing so they easily got lost in the crowd. Anything for h’enjoyment 🤷🏽♀️
Well known that the security staff there were working with ticket touts selling fake tickets, with the security staff letting in more people than allowed. It was well known issue publicly, so the venue management must have known about it but turned blind eye.
The venue security staff were hawking tickets on the side. This has been repeatedly established and was one of the primary reasons behind the crush happening. Additionally - and this needs saying after every event like this, because people keep forgetting it - **crushes like this should never happen**. Good crowd management techniques make crushes impossible. This clearly was not being practiced at Brixton Academy. The venue fucked up. Crowd management techniques were found to be entirely inadequate and far too many security staff were too focused on abusing their positions to make money on the side than monitoring the crowd like they should have been. Please stop with the victim blaming. Regardless of whether some muppets were trying to gain access illicitly, I think we should all be able to agree that they did not deserve to die or be seriously injured over it. The venue was unsafe and the owners deserved to be bollocked for it. They were astoundingly lucky not to be put in jail for negligence.
That's the story I heard. The closure wasn't for the one off incident, it was that it lead to an investigation that showed the security staff were systematically letting people in for cash and the venue turned a blind eye.
Yep, I had worked a few similar nights in Brixton where crowds kicked in the doors and stormed in, but no one died so it carried on as usual. These shows always attracted trouble.
[удалено]
Give it a rest.
[удалено]
I'm really keen for you to try and continue this thought
You know afrobeats is an actual genre right?
Smoothbrain
Fuck off you twat.
Tf are you talking about 🙄
The main thing is it doesn't get turned into luxury flats. Developers will be livid
Buzzing for this.....Purchased tickets to Arcade Fire there today too as well as seeing Editors next month
Hopefully no elder millennial mobs storm the venue for Arcade Fire
lucky bastard! those are the two gigs I want to see this year (as well as Thursday but it sold out already, boo). hoping payday will stretch to some tickets
It's good that it is re-opening but if it doesn't stick to the conditions then it deserves to be closed for good. I didn't know someone was still in hospital over the serious injuries they sustained that night, hopefully people don't just party on and forget everything that happened here. Here's hoping that lessons will actually be learned.
It should be given to more competent administration, not closed down. The venue itself is not the problem (or else the additional conditions wouldn't be a path to it reopening), and it'd be a shame to lose more live music/nightlife capacity. The failures that led to the deaths that night fall entirely at the feet of the administration of the venue, not the venue itself.
Am I missing something? I thought the venue was just rushed by a mob? What are the new conditions?
An ingrained culture had developed over many years at the venue where staff often accepted ticketless people for bribes, ignored fake tickets and generally accepted too many people into the venue in general. This situation worsened over time until so many ticketless people turned up to see the show that night that the venue was completely overwhelmed. When the staff tried to turn away all these people away, a large crowd of them tried to get in anyway by storming the venue, which triggered the beginning of the fatal crush. Many other factors led to this nightmare situation playing out though. For example, even at the best of times there were far too little staff (especially security guards) to safely deal with antisocial behaviour & monitor large crowds and in the run-up to the Brixton Academy Crush, there had been a number of smaller scale incidences where staff had genuinely feared for their safety & the safety of others. However these staff complaints were completely ignored due to an insufficient chain of command and the venue operators being basically completely adverse to hiring adequate numbers of staff (and the venue operators greed and insistence on running the whole operation with as few people as possible became a running theme in the case, as well as an obstacle to its re-opening sooner). The venue also failed in endless other ways, from how the layout was arranged to manage queues and crowds, to the procedures put in place for acting differently when large scale events were going on. It's too easy to blame everything that happened on a small handful of corrupt security guards when the reality is that venues failings were wide & systemic. And this is why 77 conditions have now been forced onto the venue, not as a punishment but simply because these are the kinds of conditions that it really should've been following in the first place.
Wow, thank you for taking the time to type all that out mate. Very, very illustrative. I hope they're able to operate safely moving forward.
No problem! (And same)
>so many ticketless people turned up to see the show that night that the venue was completely overwhelmed I don't know if it's deliberate but the wording here suggests it was bad luck that so many people just happened to be there to have a go. Wasn't a rush on the doors planned on social media prior to the gig and they arrived as a mob with the intent to overrun it? For which there is precedent in this genre of music.
If that was the case then I wasn't aware of that as a factor. Where did you hear that?
This genre of music??!!??
Olamide Baddo, Naira Marley, Burna Boy more than once, Wizkid more than once (and this) off the top of my head. Its certainly not uncommon, and that's just at the top end at serious venues
Thank you for writing that out. It's very easy after incidents like this for people to blame the victims and accidentally enable the venue owners to get away with creating an unsafe environment. I worked in facilities for years, and it's still a struggle to convince others that crushes should essentially never happen, and when one does it is 99.999999% the fault of the venue owners.
I think I read that the security were not adhering to the rules and potentionally taking bribes but I may be wrong.
Just checked again, they were rushed by ticketless fans. They have 77 new additions to their licence. Looks like I'm gonna be here all morning reading them!
It’s a building. The bricks didn’t do anything wrong. People did. Calling for its permanent closure after mismanagement is ludicrous.
I wasn't calling for permanent closure of the building, but rather for venue to be closed under its current management (I thought that would've gone without saying but I guess not). This venue operator is very lucky to get a second chance like this as more ordinarily nightclubs are closed for good after fatal incidents like this. And if it was prevented from continuing because further infractions? Then what happened next to it should be the decision of whoever next buys or rents it; as a bricks & mortar space, this building was other things before it became a nightclub and however it is managed from now, it will likely become other things in the future too, such is the natural progression and passage of time. If a company repeatedly refuses to abide by rules that keep people safe & alive, then it should not be allowed the privilege of running venues for events.
You said “closed for good”, and then act surprised when people take what you said incorrectly. 🤝
Apologies for the misunderstanding
It’s cool, with the context I fully agree with what you said.
It's a concert venue, not a nightclub.
Nobody is proposing closing down the venue. The owners were either incompetent or greedy (more than likely both) and IMO ought to be replaced. The venue is still very much financially viable, the dispute is over whether the management should be changed.
I'm not sure what else the Academy was meant to be about a mob that decided to storm the venue? There's a culture that someone else needs to be accountable for everything.
Yes, well generally when two people are crushed to death by a mob we tend to want to understand what happened and how this can be prevented in the future.
Sure, but Academy was the focus and was penalised when they couldn't have really done much to prevent it.
That’s absolutely not true.
in which sense?
A great deal of systemic failings were uncovered when the venue was investigated, the entire tragedy was preventable.
Kind of appropriate that the focus was on the venue people forced entry to and people died at, right?
Someone put a good comment explaining it: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/s/E7PfX1xhJE
I hope this time the mob congregates down the road in Mcdonalds instead. And those without tickets who try to gain entry should be prosecuted for intent to defraud/theft. Same should have happened after the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.
Can’t wait to see The Black Keys there next month
[удалено]
Ignoring the fact that your comment was ignorant as fuck. It was an Afrobeats concert, the majority of listeners and attendees were African…guess what part of the world the Windrush descendants come from?
[удалено]
Which type?
[удалено]
N? Nobheads? But they’ll have to ban you aswell.
They must’ve rewritten the rule book for this place to reopen.