LIVE EVENTS
Sometimes, everything just goes to straight down the drain. All that planning. All that preparation. All those terrible ideas
2005: Giant Snapple-pop Flood
You kids are probably too young to remember this, but way back in 2005, Snapple attempted to break a world record by creating the world s biggest ice-pop. They strapped the massive popsicle onto the back of a trailer and hauled it into the middle of Union Square. On the first day of summer. Surprise! It melted, and the fire department was called to clean up the ocean of kiwi-strawberry runoff. Oopsies.
1992: Guns n Roses Concert Riot
Doesn t matter how many times you test the sound equipment: we re all slaves to the vagaries of celebrity whim. In 1992, a Montreal concert featuring Metallica and Guns n Roses went south in a series of unfortunate incidents that culminated in thousands of dollars worth of property damage. First, Metallica s James Hetfield was severely burned by a pyrotechnic misfire during his performance. The next headliner, Guns n Roses, took their sweet time getting on stage, but once they did, they performed a paltry 50-minutes before deciding they d had enough. The audience, understandably annoyed, trashed the stadium and spilled out into the street, forcing the city to call up over 300 riot police. Nice.
1989: Marchioness Disaster
The Marchioness was out on a pleasure cruise carrying 131 guests attending the 26th birthday party of Antonio de Vasconcellos, which had been arranged by his friend Johnathan Phang. Around 2am, the Marchioness was suddenly struck by the 262-foot long Bowbelle, who drove the smaller craft underwater in a staggering 30 seconds. Out of 131 guests, only 80 survived the collision.
2011: Indiana State Fair Stage Collapse
This stage collapse, which happened during a Sugarland performance at the Indiana State Fair, looks like a sad case of mis-communications and under-reporting:
Throughout the day and evening of the concert, the National Weather Service issued notices and warnings predicting strong thunderstorms. Messages about the forecasts were relayed to various State Fair personnel via an automated text-messaging system.
At 8:00 p.m., Cindy Hoye, Executive Director for the Indiana State Fair Commission, held a meeting to discuss what effect the weather forecast would have on the 8:45 p.m. start time for the Sugarland show. Members of the meeting were told that the storm was forecast to arrive at 9:15 p.m., 30 minutes after the concert was to begin. Hoye wanted to delay the show until the weather had passed.
An official took this message to Sugarland s managers, who said they preferred to go on with the show as scheduled and only stop if weather conditions worsened. The managers only knew about the rain, not the lightning, wind, and hail that were expected. They decided to start the show just 5 minutes late (8:50 p.m.) to allow the band time to warm up.
2010: India s Commonwealth Games
Called the worst-planned international sporting event ever by Business Insider, India s Commonwealth Games suffered from an incredible roster of mishaps and problems, including corruption allegations, serious stadium construction delays, flooding, Dengue Fever outbreaks, poor security, water supply issues, tourist shootings and ta da a bridge collapse.
