Concert safety in the spotlight ahead of EDC Orlando – WESH 2 Orlando

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Last weekend’s deadly tragedy at Houston’s Astroworld music festival has many people rethinking their own safety at concerts.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the electronic music festival, EDC Orlando, this weekend. Some people may want to consider taking extra precautions before going to large events like EDC.
“The very first thing you do on a safety level is when you go into a concert venue, just look and see where the exits are,” said safety and security expert, Randy Atlas.
Atlas said concerts are normally relatively safe, but things can turn dangerous when organizers don’t properly plan for crowd control.
“You’ve got to have strong perimeter control,” Atlas said. “You have to have more than sufficient interior security staff to create buffer zones to the stage and be able to move people and to keep fire aisles clear.”
If you find yourself in a crowd surge similar to what happened in Houston, Atlas said you should treat it the same way you would an ocean rip current.
“Essentially what you’re experiencing is a riptide current of people and you want to try to go with the flow and then just keep moving to the side — where now you have a little bit more room, where you can then exit the push while you’re doing that,” Atlas said.
But with concerts increasing in size, some people may be wondering how they can avoid ending up in scary situations like what happened at Astroworld. Atlas urged people to do their research on the events they plan to attend before buying a ticket.
“Ultimately, your job as a consumer which is A) do you want to attend the concert that is potentially going to be loud and aggressive?” Atlas said.
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