CINCINNATI (NewsNation Now) — Jerry Springer, a former Cincinnati mayor and city council member, says, “We should have learned something” from the 1979 tragedy that took place before a The Who concert in the city.
“Before the doors opened, people were crushed to death,” Springer said on Banfield.
Eleven people were killed as fans rushed to get in the concert at Riverfront Coliseum. The vast majority of the roughly 18,000 tickets that were sold were something called general admission, also known as festival seating.
Springer said he had previous introduced legislation to to prohibit festival seating in an indoor arena.
“I didn’t want festival seating because that puts a premium, since no one’s assigned a particular seat, to getting there early,” Springer said. “So you’re basically incentivizing the crowd to get there early.”
The city eventually banned festival seating for most events after the tragedy, then removed the ban many years later.
On Friday, fans at a Houston music festival surged toward the stage, crushing concertgoers. Eight people died and hundreds were injured.
“For God’s sakes, what is the security meeting like the few days before the concert?” Springer asked.
He believes concert promoters want to have festival seating.
“And the reason is, if you have festival seating, you can charge everyone the same price,” Springer said. “If you assign tickets, then obviously you can charge the people sitting in the upper deck as much money as you would charge the people down in front.”
The investigation into the deadly Houston festival is ongoing. Meanwhile, dozens of fans have filed lawsuits against organizers.