Update: Love Parade

The organizers of the 2010 Love Parade music festival, where 21 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a human stampede last month, have created a website that seeks to analyze and explain how the catastrophe happened: "Just like the victims' families, the participants and the general public, we, too, must understand what happened on 24 July 2010. This website is an expression of the fact that we accept this responsibility."

An honest attempt at transparency? A pragmatic attempt to deflect blame or limit liability? Both? Neither? Regardless, the maps, documents, and videos that the Love Parade team makes available on the site offer interesting and valuable information about event staging, especially when it comes to how crowds move.

Thanks, once again, to the MeCo group for staying on top of this story.

The Love Parade: A Cautionary Tale

Meeting planning doesn't seem like a dangerous job, but it's easy to forget that you never quite know what's going to happen when you bring together a large group of people. In Duisburg, Germany, investigators are still trying to figure out what went wrong at the 2010 Love Parade music and dance festival, where 21 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured in a human stampede two weeks ago.

There seems to be a lot of blame to go around. On Wednesday, Spiegel Online reports, a law firm commissioned to review the tragedy released a report that points the finger at the Love Parade's organizers for violating security guidelines and ignoring the fact that they were expecting up to twice as many attendees as the 250,000 allowed by the venue's city permit. It's a terrible story on every level, and for our industry, the fact that bad event management could have played a role in 21 people being crushed to death is chilling.

Hat tip to the MeCo group for the Spiegel Online article.