As South Korea mourns the victims of the weekend Halloween crush, Indonesia has appeared to avoid another potentially deadly stampede after police stopped a music festival when around three times as many people turned up than capacity allowed for, leading to fainting and minor injuries.
The fiasco in Jakarta unfolded less than a month after 135 people were killed in a stampede at a football stadium in East Java , where police had used tear gas on rioting fans. An independent fact-finding team, set up by President Joko Widodo, found that the organiser had offered around 42,000 tickets for the match, beyond the stadium capacity of 38,000.
The overselling of tickets is also likely behind some of the overcrowding at the live music event, Berdendang Bergoyang (Singing and Dancing), that caused dozens of festival goers to faint or be injured, some of them needing oxygen.
The organiser of the event, which was supposed to take place over three days, told Jakarta police in its initial proposal it was targeting only 3,000 attendees per day. On Friday, more than 20,000 people arrived, the police said, with even more on Saturday.
The capacity of the arena, a stadium called Gelora Bung Karno, is about 7,000. An investigation is under way into how many tickets were actually sold.
“We also found [the organiser’s] letter to the tourism and creative economy agency that [they targeted] 5,000 visitors, the same target they told [the] Covid-19 task force,” Central Jakarta Metro police chief Commissioner Komarudin told reporters on Sunday, as cited by CNN Indonesia.
On the first day of the festival, on Friday, there was only one medical tent staffed by five people inside the venue, “while people were queuing to seek medical attention such as oxygen tanks and others”, he said. The organiser, Komarudin said, “had ignored the safety factors [of the event], including by providing evacuation routes”.
Footage posted on Twitter by festival goers show a sea of people inside the arena. Some were also seen pushing a glass door to enter the venue on Saturday, the second day of the festival, attended by more than 21,500 people, police said.
Some said that security staff did not scan their wristbands, which resulted in too many attendees due to some managing to enter without paying. A festival goer described the situation as “scarier than Halloween”.
It is unclear why police did not stop Saturday evening’s event earlier, or before it began, given what had happened the night before.
Some frustrated visitors, disappointed the festival was shut down early, got into physical tussles with organisers.
berdendang bergoyang payaahh masa jam 10 uda kelar pdhl di schedule jam 11 feel koplo baru mulai pic.twitter.com/eh9YgH0SWe
— anna (@fthyanna) October 29, 2022
A festival goer called Donny Pasaribu said on Twitter that the situation inside the arena on Saturday night was “full, tight, hard to breathe, too”.
“I couldn’t stand it and rushed out. When we were about to leave, we were trapped by the flow of people going out and coming in, and there was only one door [to do so],” he said.
Another visitor, Daniel Julian, talked of overcrowding, overcapacity and “bad” flow, adding: “I don’t see any security personnel helping [us with] this problem”.
berdendang bergoyang 2022 is just a not well-prepared festival. overcrowded and overcapacity with their lame promotor while the flow is bad, no trash bins with many disgusting spots. i don't see any security personnel helping this problem
— Daniel Julian (@daniel7ulian) October 29, 2022
The second day of the festival was ended early by police at around 10pm, resulting in crowds chanting for a refund.
Komarudin said that the decision was taken after the organiser did not heed the police’s requirements for audience limits; a reduction in the number of stages, from five to three; improvements to the flow of people; and additional medical tents.
The police found there were four stages scattered throughout the venue.
On Saturday night “dozens” of revellers also fainted, with many injured due to stampedes, the police said. They later revoked the festival’s third day permit and planned to launch an investigation into Emvrio Production, the event organiser.
“If there is a crime later, we will certainly process it. What we want to explore is why in their crowd permit application, they said that the crowd would be around 3000-5000, when they sold so many more tickets,” Komarudin said.
The Central Jakarta Metro police has questioned two people responsible for the festival and is planning to seek testimonies from witnesses. On its Instagram, the company promised to give refunds for those who bought tickets.
“We apologise profusely for this incident, in the future we will continue to evaluate and prepare carefully by following procedures and prioritising the safety and security of the audience,” the firm said.
The stampedes are the latest in a series of chaotic concerts in Indonesia as event organisers display their lack of preparation to restart the live music industry after social distancing limits, imposed by the government during the pandemic, ended.
Earlier this month refunds were offered to the audience of Irish pop group Westlife in the city of Yogyakarta, after a concert took place in a dark venue pounded by heavy rain.
This article was first published in Asia One . All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
