On This Day in History: December 3
Tragedy at The Who concert in Cincinnati
Subscribers please go to the home page to find today’s audio version.
At my first ever concert in 1984, I rushed to get near the front to see Iron Maiden up close. I tripped and went down. I was stepped on only once before my friend Don grabbed the back of my leather jacket and hauled me to my feet. Considering 11 people died in a similar manner at a concert by The Who only five years previous, I can’t explain why the practice of rush seating still flourishes.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 3, 1979--
My generation did it all the time. Show up early, yell profanity to get them to “open the fucking doors!” then run for it. This was before those cocksticks at Ticketmaster let bots get all the prime seats for scalping without verifying who are you, a robot, or not?
On December 3, 1979, The Who was in the middle of the U.S. portion of their world tour, playing at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati. The Who is awesome, and so the concert sold out, with almost 15,000 of the over 18,000 tickets sold being unassigned seats; it was the deadly “first come, first served” for seating choices. Getting prime real estate at a major concert event is never pure and easy.
The crowd had been waiting for hours outside. The doors were all supposed to open simultaneously, but only a pair at the end of the main entrance opened. People began going mobile, pushing toward them. Then a sound-check by the band getting in tune was interpreted as the concert having started, and some kids slipped; they weren’t alright. Some were trampled, others were crushed against the building. Eleven people died from asphyxiation, and 26 others were injured.
The concert went ahead as planned. No one told the band about what happened until after the show.
You better bet people were pissed. There was a class-action lawsuit against the band, the promoter, and the city of Cincinnati. The city enacted a ban on unassigned seating for a time, but later repealed it. Two months after the tragedy the show WKRP in Cincinnati did an episode titled “In Concert” that gave a fictionalized account of the events.
Over 40 years later the Who planned to return to Cincinnati for the first time since 1979. It was scheduled for April 2020 but was delayed due to Covid. They wouldn’t be fooled again into putting their fans at unnecessary risk.
Subscribe for access to cool shit:
Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN
That open seating was a disaster waiting to happen. Makes you wonder the promoters were thinking. I can't understand why the law was repealed.
And Ticketmaster sucks.
I didn’t hear about the incident when it happened, but I remember the WKRP episode well. They did a great job with it.