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Morten Thanning Vendelo, Copenhagen Business School,
[email protected] Claus Rerup, U. of Western Ontario,
[email protected]
11129 WEAK CUES AND ATTENTIONAL TRIANGULATION: THE PEARL JAM CONCERT ACCIDENT AT ROSKILDE FESTIVAL
ABSTRACT We use an inductive study of the accidental death of nine men during a Pearl Jam concert to explain how attentional structures can cause organizational members to overlook weak cues of danger. To explore the link between attentional structure and weak cues, we develop an attention-based perspective on how the rapid incubation of the accident made it difficult to detect. The main contribution of our study is to further develop the concept of attentional triangulation, which refers to the intersection of three dimensions of organizational attention (stability, vividness, and coherence) to identify weak cues of danger in low risk contexts where swiftly incubating accidents are possible. We use these findings to reexamine contemporary organizational thinking about attention in complex organizations.
Keywords: Weak cues, attention, swift accident, learning from rare events.
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11129 INTRODUCTION The onset of organizational accidents in high risk contexts often happen long before the actual event, suggesting that such accidents could have been prevented if attention had been paid to weak cues signaling danger (Snook, 2000; Starbuck & Farjoun, 2005). This insight assumes that the accidents incubate slowly so there is time to notice and act on weak cues. In some high-risk contexts accidents are prone to unfold rapidly (Weick, 1993), making it harder to notice and act on weak cues unless particular care has been given to develop the available repertoire of categories for swiftly making sense of the environment. One explanation for why it is difficult to heed weak cues in contexts prone to rapid incubation of accidents is that people are likely to attend to stimuli that are salient, extreme and relevant to socially primed categories rather than stimuli that are less distinct (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Given cognitive limitations then a second explanation is that when events unfold rapidly people might not recognize particular cues as indicators of potential problems (Ocasio, 1997). A third explanation is that in fast paced environments weak cues can be noticed by different people at different times, generating conflicting interpretations about what the cues mean. When people close to where the cues manifest frame them differently, supervisors further away may receive conflicting messages, which can lead to confusion. The purpose of this paper is to advance an attention-based perspective to explain how organizations can prevent rapidly incubating accidents. Specifically, we further develop the concept of attentional triangulation (Rerup, 2009) to explain how organizations can identify potential threats from weak cues in low-risk contexts prone to rapid incubation of accidents. The perspective we develop is based on theories of sensemaking and attention. These theories underline that attention is a limited resource (Cyert & March, 1963; Ocasio, 1997; Greve, 2008) and that organizational members actively participate in the construction of the structures that shape how they create order and make sense of what occurs in their
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11129 environment (Weick, 1995; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Maitlis, 2005; Fiss & Hirsch, 2005). Although scholars have noted the importance of being able to attend to and make sense of weak cues (Levinthal & Rerup, 2006; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006), the minutia and difficulty of this type of attention and sensemaking “at the organizational level remain[s] relatively unexamined” (Maitlis, 2005: 21). Further, low risk organizational contexts such as education and entertainment are different from the high risk organizations that traditionally have been used to theorize accident prevention (Perrow, 1999; Weick et al., 1999). We take some steps to close these gaps by delineating two aspects of organizational attention that have received less interest in the literature on accident prevention: (1) attention to weak cues and rapidly incubating accidents in (2) low risk contexts. Our theorizing is grounded in a multi-method historical ethnography of Roskilde Festival – an annual rock festival that attracts 80.000 people. By 2000, around 2,100 concerts with a total audience of 1.6 million people had been conducted without a serious incident. This pattern changed on June 30, 2000, when nine young men in a rare event were trampled to death during a concert with the rock band Pearl Jam. In particular, we explore how crowd behaviors generated weak cues indicating that the concert was both an ordinary routine event and a dangerous situation, and how that ambiguity and the difficulty in the organization to coherently and clearly attend to these cues lead to the death of the nine men. The study contributes to the literature on organizational attention in at least three ways. First, the concept of attentional triangulation emphasizes that low risk organizations prone to experience swiftly incubating accidents can actively develop attentional structures for proactively noticing, interpreting, and acting on weak cues signaling danger. Second, by building on Schütz (1964a; 1964b) notion of different types of intersubjective relations, we emphasize how deliberate attempts to develop “we relations” can better attentional triangulation among actors that are anonymous. Third, we show how an organization can
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11129 learn from a tragic rare event to prevent future accidents by improving its capacity for attentional triangulation.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND A growing stream of conceptual (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006; Barnett, 2008) and empirical research (Bouquet & Birkinshaw, 2008; Greve, 2008; Salvato, 2009) focuses on organizational attention, which has been defined as “the noticing, encoding, interpreting, and focusing of time and effort by organizational decision-makers on both (a) issues: the available repertoire of categories for making sense of the environment; problems, opportunities and threats; and (b) answers: the available repertoire of action alternatives; proposals, routines, projects, programs, and procedures” (Ocasio, 1997: 189). Given that organizational members have cognitive limitations they tend to sequentially focus attention on issues based on their salience, relevance and urgency (Kim & Miner, 2007). Alternatively, the structure of labor makes sure that particular departments and hierarchical levels attend to particular issues while other units attend to other issues. Both forms of allocation reduce attention load by narrowing the number of issues on which to focus. Structuring attention this way prevents limited attentional resources from being distracted to less important and perhaps peripheral issues (Ocasio, 1997). Unfortunately, these approaches to attentional specialization can also prevent organizational members from detecting cues with less signal strength (Kiesler & Sproull, 1982: 556). Narrow attention to a few select and salient issues can gradually reduce and simplify not only the available repertoire of categories for making sense of the environment but also the available repertoire of action (Weick, 1995). Attentional simplification can inhibit the organization’s ability to detect and act on subtle changes in both existing and emerging issues (Levinthal & Rerup, 2006). For an organization to detect such changes discrimination
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11129 of non-salient, non-urgent and potentially irrelevant cues of small adjustments in an issue need to be noticed and their uniqueness retained rather than lost in an existing category (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006).
Attentional Triangulation Retention of weak issue specific cues in new categories requires that an organization both divide and integrate the attention focus of its members to more clearly discriminate between issues and detect emerging threats and problems. The combined need for integration and differentiation of attention unfold around three dimensions: stability, vividness and coherence. We derived these dimensions of attention by alternating between the data in the study presented below and the literature on attention and action (Schütz, 1964a; 1964b; Weick and Sutcliffe, 2006; Rerup, 2009). While the three dimensions are not meant to be comprehensive of all possible forms of attention we propose that they are critical subcomponents of an organization’s attention system whose deliberate interaction can help us to better understand how its members detect weak cues and prevent swiftly incubating accidents in low risk contexts. Attentional stability refers to the select small area of reality, the foreground, where social actors in organizations are able to clearly and consistently focus attention (Ocasio, 1997). As Schütz (1964b: 283) remarks, “There is a small kernel of knowledge that is clear, distinct and consistent in itself. This kernel is surrounded by zones of various gradations of vagueness, obscurity, and ambiguity” (Schütz, 1964b: 283). Attention stability is realized when the mind selectively takes possession of one issue or group of issues out of the many issues on which it can focus. Repeated focalization and concentration of consciousness on a particular issue or object over time is necessary to detect weak cues because the subtleties and potential complexities of an issue are only noticed when looked upon with discipline over
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11129 time. The pros (and cons) of attention stability is that it promotes a deep, but relatively narrow awareness of what goes on in a specific context. Attentional vividness refers to scanning of the broader “background” area of reality that organizational members keep an eye on. Diffusion and diversion of attention to peripheral issues and cues are of its essence. Where attention stability is about reducing distraction and holding cues associated to a particular issue or object in mind, attention vividness is about increasing distraction and jumping from one issue to another to understand more broadly what is going on. Attention vividness builds a more complex representation of context and issues. It involves, per Weick and Sutcliffe (2006), development of fluid and evolving categories for noticing, classifying and responding to issues and stimuli. Attention vividness mobilizes a rich but relatively broad awareness of what goes on in a specific context by zooming in and out of the foreground and background of that context. Attentional vividness refers to the richness and detail of organizational scanning and interpretation of complex data (Weick, 2007). Attentional coherence refers to how similar or compatible attention to issues is across levels, units and people. As Schütz (1964a: 22) reminds us, our comprehension of what goes on and the valence of our actions in a context emerge from our relations with others. Others whom we encounter do not appear to us in the same way because our relationships with them have different degrees of intimacy, anonymity and overlap in comprehension of what a situation is about. On the one hand, in relations characterized by intimacy, familiarity and overlap in comprehension, we relations (Schütz, 1964a; 1964b), individuals are aware of each other and of that awareness, and they are able to collective understand what is going on in a context. For example, in we relations people distributed across various work-groups or hierarchical levels will be able to develop a shared understanding of key issues and emerging threats and devise a set of actions to prevent an accident. Such actions are possible because in
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11129 we relations the involved parties constantly check and revise their knowledge of what issue and problems the “other” is paying attention to. On the other hand, in relations characterized by distance, anonymity and differences in comprehension, they relations (Schütz, 1964a; 1964b), co-workers, customers and partners are not concrete individuals with whom we share an environment. As a result, we obtain relatively little knowledge about what issues and problems the “other” is paying attention to. This disparity hinders coordination of information about potential threats. Attentional coherence denotes deliberate involvement of disparate individuals, teams, departments and hierarchical levels in scanning, sharing and interpreting information, including weak cues. It deliberately coordinates collective attention to specific issues across people, units, functions, levels and communities and thereby reduces attentional fragmentation and confusion. Attentional triangulation refers to the combination of the three different dimensions of attention to comprehend the same issue with greater clarity and depth. In navigation, triangulation is an approach “that uses multiple reference points to locate an object’s exact position” (Jick, 1979: 602). Similarly, we propose that organizations can improve their recognition of swiftly incubating accidents by attending to weak cues with stability, vividness and coherence. Each dimension of attention produces incomplete identification of weak cues and potential accidents. Triangulation allows an organization to build an attention structure that can improve its deliberate ability to identify issues that are potentially relevant. Attentional triangulation is important because organizations are faced with a myriad of issues at any given time. The challenge is to anticipate which issues are likely to be consequential, given that organizations cannot attend to all issues all the time. In context where accidents can incubate swiftly, that challenge is even greater given the compressed window of opportunity to halt the accident.
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11129 Organizations that develop attentional triangulation create a structure for identifying issues that can evolve into consequential events. An attentional structure that emphasizes only one or two dimensions of attention to an issue alone is likely to be insufficient to detect and prevent an accident that is swiftly incubating. In order to prevent such accidents, an organization needs to figure out how to integrate the three dimensions of attention. In what follows, we illustrate how the Roskilde Festival organization gradually created attentional structures that during a Pearl Jam concert interfered with triangulating attention to weak cues signaling danger. The nature of these structures was consequential because in less than 30 minutes an accident incubated during the event that the majority of the security organization did not comprehend was unfolding. We also specify how the Roskilde Festival organization after the rare accident developed new attentional structure to improve collective efforts at attentional triangulation.
METHOD Research context Our theorizing is grounded in a longitudinal, multi-method historical ethnography (Vaughan, 1996; Ventresca & Mohr, 2002) of Roskilde Festival – an annual Danish rock festival renowned for its safe and unpretentious atmosphere. In particular, we focus on the Pearl Jam concert on June 30, 2000, where nine young men were trampled to death. This rare event represents the worst accident in the history of the festival. Roskilde Festival was an ideal context in which to study the relationship, between attentional structures, weak cues and swiftly incubating accidents in low risk contexts because from a safety perspective nothing out of the ordinary had occurred since it was founded in 1971. The police investigation undertaken after the accident suggests that no one was expecting anything out of the ordinary on the day of the accident:
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“The extent of the [Pearl Jam concert] accident must be assumed to have been increased by – understandably enough – the slow recognition of the seriousness of the situation, doubt about the chain of command and [the meaning of] messages, a belief that the situation could be handled from the front area, and the idea that stopping the music was a big decision. Finally, it is significant that once the concert was stopped, it took a long time to make the audience move back” (Roskilde Police, 2000: 24).
Festival History. The first two day festival took place in 1971. The following year, the festival was expanded to three days, and in 1990 to four days. In 1998 the number of tickets was limited to 80,000. From 1971 to 2000, 1.657.600 guests attended a total of more than 2100 concerts. During the 1980s and 1990s the audience started to engage in crowdsurfing and slam-dancing. Given that these behaviors can cause injuries, surprisingly few guests were seriously injured. Prior to the accident in 2000, we were only able to identify two reported incidents. The first incident occurred in 1983 during a concert with Simple Minds where a guest was hit in the head by a bottle thrown into the crowd. The second incident occurred in 1985 during a concert with The Cure where 15 people fainted, and four of them were taken to the hospital, when the pressure from the crowd squeezed them up against the fence in front of the stage. Other incidents might have occurred, but were not reported. Festival Organization and Orange Stage. The festival consists of a small permanent organization and a large temporary organization of volunteers. In 2000, the permanent organization consisted of three full-time senior managers, nine employees, and approximately 175 volunteers who work within 17 functional areas such as Parking, Marketing and Stage Construction. The bands perform on four stages (Orange, Yellow, Green and White), each of which has its own organization that is enacted for the duration of the festival. Pearl Jam was
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11129 playing on Orange Stage when the accident happed. During the actual festival more than 15,000 volunteers perform various duties. Table 1 summarizes the various functions and duties performed by volunteers in Orange Stage Organization (OSO).
---------------------------------------------INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE ---------------------------------------------Data collection Data collection started in August 2001 and ended in July 2008. Our data covers the history of the festival from 1971 to 2008 with a special emphasis on the accident in 2000. We collected the data to understand how the Pearl Jam concert accident initiated change in attentional structures to better detect and act on swiftly incubating threats. Prolonged engagement with the data (Miles & Huberman, 1994) and the use of three data collection mechanisms (archival data, training to be a security guard, working as a security guard) helped us to understand the relation between attentional structures, weak cues and swift incubation in a low risk environment. The use of multiple data sources reduces potential retrospective biases by adding complementary perspectives. Archival data. As summarized in Table 2, our rich data represent 17,405 documents and 11,451 pages. These data show how particular attentional structures developed and changed from 1971 to 2008. We organized the documents into five specific categories to file, retrieve and analyze the data: (1) Accident investigations, (2) festival newspapers, (3) newspaper articles, (4) books and photos, and (5) documentaries. These categories helped us to triangulate the data (Jick, 1979) and develop more reliable understandings of the attentional structures that existed pre and post the accident.
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11129 ---------------------------------------------INSERT TABLE 2 AROUND HERE ---------------------------------------------(1) Accident investigations. Based on interviews with 977 people, Roskilde Police issued its written investigation (24 pages) on December 15, 2000 (Roskilde Police, 2000). It concludes that the behavior of the audience was the main cause of the accident, and that the festival management had no culpability. The Zealand Public Prosecutor published his report on June 11, 2002 (173 pages). It provides a more elaborate account of the accident, and concludes that the festival management was partly responsible, because it took 20 minutes from the audience fell over till the music was stopped. Given the large number of people interviewed both reports helped us to build a nuanced account of how OSO made sense of cues before the music was stopped. We do not use the reports uncritically. Whenever possible, independent confirmation of important statements was sought through alternative data sources (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). (2) Festival newspapers. We collected 112 issues of the festival newspaper. These data helped us to generate an understanding of the evolution of the festival. For example, in the early 1990s reports appear about how Front Area Teams begin to pull people over the fence in front of Orange Stage during concerts. These data helped us to establish a detailed understanding of how particular expectations gradually solidified into taken-for-granted repertoires for attending to, making sense of, and responding to cues. (3) Newspaper articles. The media covered Roskilde Festival and the Pearl Jam concert accident extensively. Based on Zilber’s (2002: 285) methodology, we collected articles published in the most widely circulated daily Danish newspapers because they were electronically indexed and archived in the database Infomedia, which allowed for the collection of all articles containing the search string “Roskilde Festival.” For the month after the accident we identified 495 articles. 70% of the articles were published in the week 11
11129 immediately after the accident. We use the information in the newspaper articles to (1) verify the information summarized in the two accident investigations and (2) visualize how the taken-for-granted repertoires for attending to, making sense of, and responding to cues disintegrated as the concert unfolded. (4) Books and photographs. Roskilde Festival is a cultural event and has been documented in books. We analyzed four books to obtain accounts of how the audience and the volunteers described the experience of participating in the festival. Finally, www.rockphoto.dk (official service partner of Roskilde Festival) provided access to a total of 4783 pictures taken at the festival (1997-2008). We compared photos of particular concerts and written statements about the same concert published by a third party in other data sources to capture the experience of attending concerts at Orange Stage. (5) Documentaries. Over the years the festival has been captured in a number of documentaries. We obtained two of these documentaries and analyzed them to obtain accounts of how the audience and the volunteers behave during the festival. The documentaries contain a large number of sequences revealing an array of festival and concert behaviors. We compared such sequences and accounts obtained from other data sources in order to understand the risks involved when being in the crowd in front of Orange Stage. Finally, we used videos from youtube.com and band information from wikipedia.org to evaluate the intensity of the 180 concerts taking place on Orange Stage from 1990 to 2000. By comparing behaviors across concerts we found that 63 of these concerts had an intensity level, which equaled or exceeded the intensity level of the Pearl Jam concert on June 30, 2000. Hence, we concluded that high intensity concerts were common. Training to be a security guard at Orange Stage. Inspired by Sutton’s (1991) study of bill collectors, the first author volunteered to work as a crowd security guard in OSO at the festival in 2008. He took part in all activities required to become a certified crowd security
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11129 guard at the festival. He attended a two-day (four + two hours) obligatory course for volunteers joining the security crew. Lectures, exercises and written material covered such topics as stress management, decision making under pressure, and crowd psychology. These data generated a rich understanding of how; a) it feels to stand in front of 50,000 people during a concert at Orange Stage, and b) the safety organization changed after the accident. Working as a security guard at Orange Stage. The first author worked for three days and a total 23 hours (8+10+5) as a crowd security guard during eight concerts at Orange Stage. He was assigned to a team consisting of 14 crowd security guards, including the team leader, who was the only person in the team with prior experience from security work at the festival. Hands on experience helped us to better understand how the security guards and the audience think and act during concerts. This knowledge was important in strengthening our ability to make reliable interpretations of the archival data. During the fieldwork the first author carried a Dictaphone and whenever time and context permitted he would record his experiences. In total, he made 37 recordings totaling 12 hour of observations. All field notes and recordings where transcribed immediately after the festival.
Data Analysis and Coding We used content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004) and constant comparison (Suddaby, 2006) to expand our understanding of the data from the perspective of the audience and members of OSO. Although the audience is important, we primarily focus on attentional triangulation among the members of OSO. We used three basic questions to sort through the data and develop first-order categories and aggregate themes (Corley & Gioia, 2004): (1) How did members of OSO attend to weak cues during the Pearl Jam concert? (2) What attentional structures were explicitly or implicitly articulates and how were they enacted in
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11129 practices in OSO? (3) How did the attentional structures change over the history of the festival, and how did these changes influence the ability of OSO to notice weak cues? Our data analysis consisted of two phases. First, we used open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify concepts across the three themes that would convey the main issues or tasks that members of OSO attend to. Given space limitations the results of this analysis are not included here. It reveals the stability, vividness and coherence with which various members of OSO attend to particular issues. For example, the attention of the Front Area Team is characterized by low vividness and high stability on incoming crowd surfers. Second, we looked for similarities and differences across these codes to identify higher-order themes (Corley & Gioia, 2004). After several iterations, we noticed a relationship between three aggregate themes that explains why it was difficult for OSO to prevent the Pearl Jam concert accident: (1) Attentional structure – defined as the available repertoire of categories for making sense of the environment and the available repertoire of action alternatives (Ocasio, 1997: 189), (2) Weak cue – defined as an issue specific weak signal, and (3) swift accident incubation – defined as the speed with which a potential accident evolves into a threat. We identified the attentional structure by asking the following questions as we systematically sifted through the data: (1) What is Roskilde Festival? (2) What happens at Roskilde Festival? (3) From the perspective of the audience, what happens during a rock concert at Orange stage? (4) From the perspective of OSO, what happens during a rock concert at Orange Stage? Given that more than 2100 concerts took place before the accident in 2000, we were able to isolate specific situations that characterized key features of the attentional structure that the audience and members of OSO, respectively, drew on before, during and after the accident. For example, in the years before and specifically during the Pearl Jam concert accident, OSO did not have any categories for stopping a concert. For each question, and for the audience and OSO, respectively, we created data tables to augment our
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11129 understanding and compare differences and similarities. For example, in the years before the accident, OSO believed in producing safety through control whereas after the accident safety was enacted as an outcome of collaboration between the audience and OSO. We identified weak cues and swift accident incubation by dividing Orange Stage into a grid consisting of numbered cells and locating OSO members on duty across the cells (Figure 1). We created a timeline that captured not only when the concert started and the music stopped, but also when particular members of OSO (1) noticed unusual cues, (2) comprehend that something is wrong in the crowd, and (3) comprehend that the music need to be stopped (Figure 2). This analysis made us understand the disparity with which OSO triangulated attention, and thus, noticed, made sense of, and acted on weak cues signaling that the Pearl Jam concert was an unusual event.
THE ROSKILDE FESTIVAL CASE While we identified what more broadly goes on during the festival the focus of our analysis was to capture the attentional structures that members of OSO draw on during a concert at Orange Stage. We present three narratives that illustrate (1) how particular attentional structures solidified over time, (2) how the solidification generated expectations and beliefs that made it harder for some members of OSO to triangulate attention and identify weak cues signaling danger during the rapidly incubating accident, and (3) how the accident initiated changes in structures to better attentional triangulation among members of OSO. In presenting the three narratives, we have coordinated several data displays, including the three narratives, a supporting data table (Tables 3), a timeline for the Pearl Jam concert (Table 4), an overview of the position of security guards during the concert (Figure 1), and an overview of the disparity in attention to and sensmaking of cues among 17 security guards (Figure 2).
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11129 ---------------------------------------------INSERT TABLE 3 AROUND HERE ---------------------------------------------Time 1: Pre-Accident – 1971-1999 The rock concert culture changed in the mid 1980s when it became more physical and intense. Leif Skov, spokesman for the festival until 2002, explained:
”The festival culture developed to become more violent. From big British festivals and concerts … we got reports about people getting themselves into troubles. Simultaneously, we began to help the first people over the fence in Roskilde. The teams cleaning up in the morning began to find shoes and clothe, which people had lost in the crowd in front of the stage. This we had never experienced before. During a concert with The Cure [in 1985] we saw the new trends. Many in the crowd sought the ecstasy – a few were pressed against the fence, where the guards helped them over” (Jensen, 2003: 189).
During the 1990s crowd surfing became increasingly popular and accepted among the rock festival audience. For a selected group, crowd surfing was an integrated part of attending Roskilde Festival. Many guests report that crowd surfing also can be used as a way of getting out of an intense crowd. These changes in crowd behavior appear somewhat dramatic compared to the early years of the festival when the crowd was sitting down during concerts, and the most common phrase used during concerts was “sit down” (Jensen, 2003: 65). Drinking was an integrated, if not dominating part of the experience for many people attending the festival (Lautrup & Jensen, 2003: 54). Having a good time without any worries appeared to be a key objective for most Roskilde Festival attendees. We did not find indications that thinking about the danger of being in the Orange Stage crowd was an issue. Falling over or getting a crowd surfers shoe in the face was considered normal – but helping 16
11129 each other to get up was also the norm. Safety was not something which seemed to occupy the crowd. Also, we identified 4967 newspaper articles for the period 1971-June 30 2000. Approximately 1% of the articles addressed safety related issues (Table 2). Safety and the possibility of serious injury was simply a non-issue. The potential risk of being trampled by the crowd and dying during a concert was considered a non-event by the audience, the festival organizers, and observers of the festival. For 30 years concerts were remarkably safe and uneventful although the audience gradually began to engage in more physical and ‘wild’ concert behaviors:
”During the 90s the body language of the rock music and the brutality on both sides of the stage increased. … It was no longer enough just to stand at a concert, to listen and see. You participated actively. A lot of … moshing – took place in the crowd.” (Jensen, 2003: 79).
Johannes Andersen, an observer of youth culture, and a regular attendee of Roskilde Festival, commented on why the crowd started to engage in more wild behaviors:
“We want to get out and feel our own body. We have a need for authenticity, which is more than just words, and for the experience it is very important that you cannot run away from it when you have positioned yourself in the front with all the others….. It is about experiencing the challenge from putting your own body at stake. ‘Now it’s getting serious, there is no way back’, says Johannes Andersen” (Wiborg, 2001: 5).
Over the years both the crowd and the security guards in front of Orange Stage adjusted to this environment. For example, security guards started to expect that during an ordinary concert they would be pulling fainting people, mostly small girls, over the fence and
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11129 into the front area. They also started to expect an ongoing stream of crowd surfers. Crowd surfers arrived in the front area, and were guided back to the audience area through the cat hatch (see figure 1). When returning to the audience area they often surfed the crowd again, and thus, returned several times to the front area. Nobody in OSO questioned crowd surfing, nor was it perceived to be dangerous. As a result of these changes, the security guards started to look for cues signaling (1) fainting people who needed to be pulled over the fence, (2) crowd-surfers to catch and release, in order for them not to fall down and hurt themselves when arriving at the fence, (3) de-hydrated people who needed to be supplied with water, and (4) intoxicated people who needed assistance (see also Table 3). The front area was characterized by an intense atmosphere and a high workload. With five to ten people getting across over the fence every minute during a concert there was not much time for thinking. The security guards serviced a particular sub-section of the fence and given the noise and intensity of the context it was difficult to look deep into the crowd. Instead, the security guards focused their attention on what went on immediately in front of them. As such, the task required them to be myopic and focus on ‘their’ part of the fence with high stability. Intensity was the unit by which the security guards measured the ‘difficulty’ of their work, and compared the workload during the different concerts. Danger was not a topic for consideration. As long as the security guards could keep pace with the bodies arriving everything was fine. Working in the front area involved hard work in an intense atmosphere, which could appear chaotic and brutal to the newcomer. Yet, for the trained and experienced security guard the front area was an exciting place where one could feel alive. The more people they needed to pull over the fence, the more fun they had. “It can be very chaotic and rough – but it gives you a kick to stand in the middle of it – it is like a one hour ride in a roller coaster” (Kongstad. 1996: 2). Injury was an issue in the form of the possibility that a security
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11129 guard could get injured while helping crowd surfers, or could experience a psychological break down, which might require psychological treatment. The work for the Front Area Team became a little more intense every year, yet attentional structures prevailed, as nobody asked if the concerts had become too risky for the audience. Instead, the higher intensity contributed to an understanding that “it involved hard work” for volunteers to be in the front area. Over time, members of OSO build up a set of expectations about what occurrences they would encounter in the future. These expectations established continuity, precision and professionalism, because they clarified what people were supposed to notice, and how and when to act. Expectations and beliefs formed as an increasing number of concerts took place. Anywhere from 100 to 150 concerts take place in the course of the four days of the festival. At the festival in 2000, the figure was 150. Based on the previous 2,000 concerts that unfolded from 1971 to 1999, the management, the 15,000 volunteers and the 80,000 guests expected the Pearl Jam concert to follow a very familiar pattern, meaning that it would run its course without major interruptions. Everyone expected the concert to be intense but the attentional structures did not offer any procedures for stopping the concert because no one imagined it to be necessary. In the 29 years the festival had taken place, only two concerts had been stopped. The first was in 1984 when a bottle thrown by an audient hit blues guitar player Johnny Winter on his hand, causing him to stop the concert 15 minutes early, with the words: “We give you music and you throw things at us, great!” (Folk paa Festival, 1984: 7, youtube video: “Johnny Winter Incident”). The second was in 1996 when the revived British punk band Sex Pistols left the stage after the lead singer repeatedly had asked the crowd to stop throwing bottles onto the stage (Andersen, 1997, youtube video: “Sex Pistols live at Roskilde 1996”). To stop the music was an unthinkable event:
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11129 “The voluntary security guards at the Orange Stage began working for the festival 23 May 2000, when approximately 120 men and women were invited to the annual information meeting. … The question of who has the authority to stop a concert and how to do it in case of life-threatening situations among the audience was never brought up. And it never has been, according to several guards that Politiken has interviewed. “It was never necessary,” according to Michael Frederiksen, who has been a security team manager for several years” (Drachman & Tranberg, 2000: 1).
Time 2: Accident – 2000 On the evening of June 30, 2000 some 50,000 people were gathered in front of Orange Stage. The concert with Pearl Jam unfolded as summarized in Table 4. ---------------------------------------------INSERT TABLE 4 AROUND HERE ---------------------------------------------Five minutes into the concert – around 10.40 pm, the audience nearest the scene was pushed heavily from behind. Two factors contributed to this: (1) the audience wanted to ‘get closer’ to Pearl Jam, and (2) the rain and the wind at the time made the concert inaudible to the audience in the back. Also at 10.30 pm a large concert ended at Green Stage, and many from that audience ran directly to Orange Stage. The audience reported that the situation was hectic at this point (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002). At about 11.05 pm a sort of wave appeared among the audience, and a group of around forty or fifty people fell in a pile, resulting in a hole appearing in the closely packed crowd nearest to the stage. One member of the Front Area Team (H-4-18-1) said: “this audience was wilder than any he had seen before. The witness reported that if the Kent concert had been a four on a scale of ten, the Pearl Jam concert was a ten.” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 62). Many Front Area Team members
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11129 expressed that this concert was no different from any other concert. Most cues seemed to indicate that the Pearl Jam concert was nothing out of the ordinary. During the concert 27 security guards were on duty in the front area. We were able to reconstruct not only the physical position of 16 security guards during the concert (see Figure 1) but also the disparity of attention and comprehension among them as they were making sense of cues in the audience (see Figure 2). ------------------------------------------------------------INSERT FIGURES 1 AND 2 AROUND HERE ------------------------------------------------------------Figure 1 conveys that the hole in the audience appeared in cell 13. We have data on eleven security guards working in front of cells 10, 13 and 16. Six of the eleven security guards noticed the hole in cell 13, but only three comprehended that something was wrong. Figure 2 summarizes that there was only one security guard, H-2-16, who from the start of the concert noticed unusual cues. In hindsight, this security guard could have stopped the concert given that he was the only one who picked up the cues early on. It is also interesting to note that H-2-14 and H-2-16 (and H-4-5-1) are the only security guards who comprehend that the music needs to be stopped. Probably because they worked in front of cell 13, and thus, had a good view of what went on in the crowd where the hole appeared. Both security guards are relatively experienced as this is the third and the fifth year, respectively, they are working in the front area. It is particular interesting to note that H-2-14 and H-2-16 classify the situation as unusual faster than any of the other security guards. Yet, it is hard to explain whether their observation is a result of prior experience or their position in front of cell 13. Based on Figure 2 we conclude that coherence and vividness about the incubating accident is low whereas stability is high across the security guards.
21
11129 The security guards off duty immediately understood that something unusual was going on when they are asked to help, because such a requests is rare. The audience spotters (see Table 1, stage security) did not by themselves observe the hole in the crowd, they only noticed the hole when repeatedly alerted to it by the Front Team leader. Henrik Tuxen, an acquaintance of Pearl Jam who was backstage, noted that towards the end of the concert “the weather had become miserable, the visibility is bad and the rain poured onto the stage” (Tuxen, 2005: 42). The forty or fifty people who were pushed over by the pressure from the audience were unable to get up by themselves and the surrounding members of the audience were unable to help. Those who had fallen were lying on top of each other. “The audience were packed tighter than sardines in a tin – it was downright impossible to pack them any closer together” (H-3-8-1) “…the audience were crawling over each other. It was as if they had run out of space … the wave continued to sway the entire rolling mass of people. It was very intense” (H-3-17) (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 66 + 69). Making matters worse was the steady flow of crowd-surfers, carried forward by the crowd, who came crashing onto the fallen members of the audience. The people in the pile realized that the situation was becoming very dangerous. “They were tangled up like Mikado sticks” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 68) as a security guard (H-4-5-1) noted. Those lying at the bottom of the pile were biting and kicking to get free. They had trouble breathing. One security guard (H-2-4) reported that “when he leaned over the fence to pick up the fallen ones and get them out, the heat and the stench was stifling,” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 61). Three to seven minutes after the first group had fallen, some of the forty or fifty people began passing out from lack of oxygen. The pressure from people lying on top restricted their breathing. Now, the time is approximately 11.10 pm. Those who managed to get over the fence told the security guards about the danger and asked them to
22
11129 stop the concert. The security guards then reported this to the Front Team leader who was unsure how to stop the concert:
“The gap was maybe three meters across. It began maybe two meters from the fence. The hole kept growing. The witness (a security guard – H-2-20), became aware that people were lying down in the hole, and that people among the audience were shouting at him and the other guards that people were falling down and dying – and that the guards should do something and do it right away. The witness reported the hole in the crowd to the Front Team leader, who reacted with desperation and said “What can we do? We can never get to them!” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 63). This happed approximately at 11.15 pm.
In the course of the following ten or twelve minutes, the Front Area Team was frantically engaged in figuring out what should be done and by whom, because the attentional structures did not provide anything to draw on: “After three or four minutes, the gravity of the situation dawned on the involved. The witness (H-3-3) approached the Front Team leader and requested that the concert be stopped…. The witness did not feel that any response was forthcoming…Three or four minutes later the witness approached the Front Team leader for the third time. The witness said: “Stop the goddamn music right now – they are dying out there!” to which the Front Team leader replied: “I told them – I told them.”…Approximately four minutes later [at 11:25 pm], the music stopped.” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 65).
Stopping the music was difficult because it was not part of the available repertoire of categories and action alternatives, which had been established over time to ‘decode’ and ‘understand’ the behavior of the audience. “The guards had been told to expect a high23
11129 intensity concert” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 58), which was not an unusual event as 1/3 of the concerts on Orange Stage since 1990 can be categorized as high-intensity concerts. One security guard positioned in the passage (H-2-21) reported that “…as usual, business picked up after the first few songs…but then we at the front and in the gangways were suddenly more busy than usual,” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 63). Another security guard (H-3-3), who moved from the passage to the front area 10 minutes into the concert, noticed that a number of the audience had fallen, but “assumed that other members of the audience would help them up, like they used to do”. (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 65). One security guard (H-4-2) observed that a number of people in the audience had fallen. “This was no immediate cause for concern, since people falling were a normal occurrence, and people were normally very good at helping each other get up again.” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 67). During the concert there were cues indicating that this was both an ordinary routine event and a swiftly incubating accident. Based on the script developed over numerous concerts in the past, the security guards (and the vast majority among the audience) normalized the cues that a dangerous situation was unfolding. And when the guards reported that ‘something’ was amiss, the Front Team leader was slow to make sense and categorize the ‘abnormal’ and act, suggesting that attentional coherence was low. When the music was finally stopped at 11.25 pm, the audience did not understand why, and it took a long time to get them to pull back. The majority of the audience was unaware of the ‘hole’, and those who could see it surmised that it was caused by a fight among members of the audience. Others believed the silence from the stage to be a happening, a part of the show. “The witness reported that just a few meters away, people were behaving exactly as they would to any normal concert. They were dancing and having a good time.” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 37). “The audience took a long time before they began to pull back, because they thought the concert would continue – the message
24
11129 [from the stage] did not penetrate.” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 49). When Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, asked the audience to pull back for the third time, the audience finally responded, and the first of the victims could be brought to the Medical Tent (see figure 1).
Time 3: Post-Accident – 2000-2008 Shortly after the accident the senior management of Roskilde Festival conveyed three insights. First, crowd security will be ineffective if it is framed as rescuing people who needs to be pulled into the front area. Second, crowd security will be ineffective if the physical layout of the stage area and the beliefs of the audience and security crew creates an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ rather than a ‘we’ atmosphere (Schütz, 1964a; 1964b). Third, security guards cannot attend to weak cues if they are busy looking after a stream of crowd surfers. These insights generated two changes. First, the audience area in front of the stage was divided into four pits where the security guards regulate the number of people entering each pit. The pits are separated by passages where security guards are positioned, allowing the security guards to observe, interact with, and reach out to the crowd. After introducing the pits the number of squeezed people decreased dramatically (Poulsen, 2008: 6). Second, OSO realized that establishing “we” relations and good communication between the crowd and the security guards is important to achieve safety. Consequently, a new safety approach was developed where the security guards where persuaded of the importance of a) taking their positions in the passages approximately one hour before a concert begins, b) establishing a psychological contract with members of the audience about joint responsibility for a good experience at the concert by chatting and exchanging story with the audience as they arrive (Skovsgaard, 2008: 8-9).
25
11129 In the security guard training and at briefings before concerts, security guards are often reminded about what to be aware of during concerts. Common messages are: Remember that it is the small girl in the crowd that you must see; ask the audience if they can breathe; ask if they are feeling well; ask if they need help; supply the crowd with water; the audience de-hydrate when it is hot and because they have been drinking. Other means for communication with the audience are: big screens where messages can be displayed (e.g., move three step back), and masters of ceremonies who are not standup comedians because the festival wants the audience to take all messages seriously. Crowd surfing and moshing were also banned. In the pits it is also no longer allowed to carry another person on the shoulders and to bring flags on long sticks. The security guards are in charge of enforcing these rules. Hands on experience, obtained by the first author during Roskilde Festival in 2008, shows that lifting people over the fence and out of the pit is physically demanding and takes away all attention from other security activities. Banning crowd surfing therefore calmed the working environment for the security guards and freed up attention to focus on weak cues, establishing in combination with the other changes discussed above an improved capability for detecting swiftly incubating accidents. OSO has been changed as well. Today, a Security Manager has the mandate to decide when a concert can begin, and if it has to stop before time. The Security Manager is in constant contact with five groups: a) supervisors leading the security teams in the pit passages in the audience area, b) audience sensors positioned inside the pits where they sense the mood among the audience, c) special security teams that can be send into the pits to solve specific situations, d) media crew that monitors all concerts from five cameras in the audience area, and e) spotters observing the crowd from the stage. This set up improves attentional triangulation in a number of ways. First, the five groups focus with stability on specific
26
11129 aspects of the crowd. Second, the five groups generate vividness by picking up various perspectives and cues on what is going on in the crowd. Third, radio contact coordinated by the Security Manager ensures attentional coherence. In combination this set up generates an improved capacity to spot swiftly incubating threats.
CONCLUSION The study of the Pearl Jam concert accident at Roskilde Festival emphasizes the importance of detecting and acting on weak cues in order to derail swiftly incubating threats. Our key message is that attentional triangulation forms a basis for potentially improving an organization’s capability to proactively attend to subtle cues. A contribution of our study is to reveal that attentional triangulation is not only important in high-risk environment where organizations operate highly sophisticated technologies (Rerup, 2009) but also in relatively low risk contexts devoid of dangerous technology such as Roskilde Festival. Going forward we need to more seriously consider how swiftly incubating accidents can unfold in low risk contexts. Doing so would push theorizing forward because past research on weak cues and accident prevention has mainly focused on slowly incubating threats in high-risk contexts (Vaughan, 1996; Starbuck & Farjoun, 2005). For example, in the Challenger disaster case multiple conversations took place over many years about the potential risk of O-rings. A similar pattern is evident in the Columbia disaster case with respect to foam strikes. In both cases the risk of the technology in use and the risk of the mission indicate that it was prudent for NASA to pay attention to weak cues. Future research would benefit from considering the outcomes of four scenarios in low risk organizations that do not operate ‘dangerous’ technology: (A) swiftly incubating threats / swift response, (B) slowly incubating threats / swift response, (C) swiftly incubating threats / slow response, and (D) slowly incubating threats / slow response.
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11129 Roskilde Festival learned from the Pearl Jam concert accident that (a) an inability to detect and act on weak cues signaling swift danger can result in scenario C outcomes that are extremely consequential, and (b) that to prevent similar accidents it needed to develop new attentional structures. In particular, Roskilde Festival learned from the Pearl Jam concert accident that it needed to prepare for scenario A. In line with Ocasio’s (1997: 189) definition of organization attention, the accident revealed how the available repertoire of categories was insufficient for noticing and making sense of swiftly incubating threats. The accident also underlined how the available repertoire of action alternatives was insufficient for responding to such threats. A finding of our study is that the changes initiated in OSO and the layout of Orange Stage after the accident were designed to develop a configuration of attentional triangulation that would prepare Roskilde Festival to deal with scenario A. Roskilde Festival reasoned that the overall possibility of experiencing accidents in the future would be reduced by doing so.
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11129 Larsen, J. S. 1995. Slidefangst i smattens tønde – Politiken LIVE’s medarbejder dykkende ned under scenen og var livredder for en aften. Politiken Live, 6: 2. Lautrup, T., & Jensen, M. 2003. Jeg hader alle mennesker (I hate all people). In. E. Jensen: På Roskilde (At Roskilde). København: Politikens Forlag: 154-167. Levinthal, D. A., & Rerup, C. 2006. Crossing an apparent chasm: Bridging mindful and less mindful perspectives on organizational learning. Organization Science, 17: 502-513. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, M. 1994. Qualitative data analysis. 2nd ed. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills. Maitlis, S. 2005. The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 48: 21-49. Ocasio, W. 1997. Towards an attention-based view of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 18: 187-206. Perrow, C. 1999. Normal accidents. 2nd Edition. Princetion, NJ: Princeton University Press. Poulsen, N. J. 2008. Medical preparedness. Notes from Crowd Security Course at Roskilde Festival, Saturday June 28., pp. 5-6. Rerup, C. 2009. Attentional triangulation: Learning from unexpected rare crisis. Organization Science, Forthcoming. Roskilde Police. 2000. Report on the accident at Roskilde Festival on June 30. 2000. December 15. 2000: 1-24. Salvato, C. 2009. Capabilities unveiled: The role of ordinary activities in the evolution of product development processes. Organization Science, Forthcoming. Schütz, A. 1964a. The dimension of the social world. In: A. Brodersen (ed.) Collected Papers, Vol 2, Studies in Social Theory. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff: 20-63.
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11129 Schütz, A. 1964b. Tiresias, or our knowledge of future events. In: A. Brodersen (ed.) Collected Papers, Vol 2, Studies in Social Theory. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff: 277-293. Skovsgaard, P. 2008. Work at the stages. Notes from Crowd Security Course at Roskilde Festival, Saturday June 28., pp. 8-11. Snook, S. A. 2000. Friendly fire: The accidental shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Starbuck, W. H., & Farjoun, M. (eds.) 2005. Organization at the limit – lessons from the Columbia disaster. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. 1990. Basics of qualitative research. Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Suddaby, R. 2006. From the editors: What grounded theory is not. Academy of Management Journal, 49: 633-642. Sutton, R. I. 1991. Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: The case of bill collectors. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 245-268. Søndergaard, B., & Egelund, R. 1998. Tak til de som bar – Vagterne foran Orange Scene drukner i kaosjunkende crowdsurfere. Politiken Roskilde Live, 7: 3. Tuxen, H. (2005) I Pearl Jams fodspor – før og efter Roskilde (In the footsteps of Pearl Jam – before and after Roskilde). København: Forlaget Gaffa. Vaughan, D. 1996. The Challenger launch decision. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Ventresca, M. J., & Mohr, J. W. 2002. Archival research methods. In: J. A. C. Baum (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Organizations. Oxford: Blackwell: 805-828. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 628-652.
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11129 Weick, K. E. 1995 Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E. 2007. The generative properties of richness. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 14-19. Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. 1999. Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. Research in Organizational Behavior, 21: 81-123. Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. 2006. Mindfulness and the quality of organizational attention. Organization Science, 17: 514-524. Wiborg, R. 2001. Respekt (Respect) Gaffa Roskilde Daily, 2: 5. Zealand Public Prosecutor. 2002. Beretning om resultatet af efterforskning af ulykken den 30. Juni 2000 på Roskilde Festival (Report from Zealand Public Prosecutor about the accident on June 30. 2000 at Roskilde Festival). 1-173. Zilber, T. B. 2002. Institutionalization as an interplay between actions, meanings, and actors: The case of a rape crisis center in Israel. Academy of Management Journal, 45: 234254.
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11129 FIGURE 1 Orange Stage Overview
33
11129 FIGURE 2 Attention to Cues in the Audience by Security Guards in the front area during the Concert
34
11129 TABLE 1 Overview of Orange Area Organization N Stage Security
Stage Office Teams of Security Guards Cat Hatch Team Gate Guards Team Production Office Stage Manager Stage Hands Load in/-out Catering Runners Ramp Guards Mixer Guards Medical Team Master of Ceremony Team on Duty Assistance Team Stage builders Guards
Five volunteers. Three are on duty during a concert; a) the security manager who operates on stage behind the musicians, and b) two audience spotters who observe the audience from the stage. Three volunteers who answer the telephone and take care of up-coming tasks. 108 voluntary security guards divided into four teams of 27. Two teams are on duty during a concert. The Front Area Team operates in the front area and the Passage Team is positioned in the passage, they are headed by the Front Team leader and the Passage Team leader, respectively. Seven volunteers who guide people from the crowd, who have entered the front area (e.g., as crow surfers), back to the audience area. 29 volunteers performing admission control to the back stage area of Orange Stage. Four volunteers who maintain contact to the bands and organize the concerts. This person is hired by the festival to manage the concerts, bands and stagehands. 16 volunteers who help the bands with their gear before and after concerts. 25 volunteers who builds the light and sound system before the festival and assist when bands go on and of the stage. 60 volunteers (kitchen crew, waiters, etc.) serving the musicians in the closed back stage area where the bands rest before and after concerts. Four volunteers. Two are allocated to the closed back stage area where the bands rest before concerts. Two are allocated to the production office. 10 volunteers controlling the access to the stage from the back stage. 12 volunteers controlling the access to the Mixer Tower located in the audience area in front of the stage. Doctors and nurses located in the emergency tent next to the Orange stage. A person hired on contract by the festival who presents the bands to the audience and mediates communication between the audience and the festival. 25 volunteers. The team lives in Orange area during the festival. It builds the stage before the festival and takes it down after the festival. 12 volunteers assisting the Team on Duty to disassemble the stage after the festival. 20 volunteers who construct the foundation of the stage before the festival. 16 volunteers serving as guards around the foundation of the stage.
35
5
3 108
7 29 4 1 16 25 60 5 10 12 10 1 25 12 20 16 369
11129 TABLE 2 Quantitative Details of Archival Data Source
Accident Investigations: Roskilde Festival Newspapers: Newspaper Articles from1: - Aktuelt2 - Berlingske Tidende - BT - Ekstra Bladet - Information - Jyllandsposten3 - Kristelig Dagblad - Politiken4 Books about Roskilde Festival Books on Rock Music Culture, including Roskilde Festival Photos about Roskilde Festival Photos on rockphoto.dk Documentaries Total
Pre-Accident 1971-June 30, 2000 Documents Pages -
Accident July 1 – July 31, 2000 Documents Pages 1 15
Post-Accident August 1, 2000-2008 Documents Pages 2 190
56
362
4
16
52
541
240 (5) 1264 (22)
79 (1,5) 417 (7)
38 (7) 71 (16)
13 (2) 23 (5)
35 (5) 1291 (58)
12 (1,5) 426 (19)
950 (9) 888 (5) 75 (2) 364 (7) 0 (0)
313 (3) 293 (1,5) 25 (1) 120 (2) 0 (0)
92 (10) 85 (4) 23 (5) 85 (22) 0 (0)
30 (3) 28 (1) 8 (1,5) 28 (7) 0 (0)
940 (26) 1003 (23) 428 (10) 1572 (66) 159 (8)
310 (9) 331 (8) 141 (3) 519 (22) 52 (3)
1186 (16)
391 (5)
101 (29)
33 (10)
1565 (88)
516 (29)
2
320
0
0
2
497
2
376
0
0
1
192
18 638
18 638
6 7
6 7
26 4138
26 4138
0 5683
0 3352
0 513
0 207
2 11209
4h 2m 7892
1
We searched every newspaper twice in the three periods. In the first search, we used the search word “Roskilde Festival.“ In the second search, we used the search words “Roskilde Festival” + “Safety.” Both searches were performed on October 20, 2008. The results of the second search are listed in parentheses, but included in the numbers that are not in parentheses. The results of the second search indicate that safety was a non-issue in the sense that very little was written about safety at the Roskilde Festival. 2 The newspaper Aktuelt was closed on April 6, 2001 3 Included in the numbers for Jyllandsposten are the articles appearing in JP Roskilde (1996-1997), which was the Roskilde Festival Newspaper in these years. 4 Included in the numbers for Politiken are the articles appearing in Roskilde Politiken Live (1991, 1995, 19982000), which was the Roskilde Festival Newspaper in these years.
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11129 TABLE 3 Orange Stage Attentional Structure Development Time 1: Pre-accident - 1971-2000 Relationship between crowd and Front Area Team
Task focus of Front Area Team
Definition: - Muscles and a foaming crowd - Safety is to get people out of the crowd - Us vs. them Supporting Data: “The front area guards as they are called stand shoulder by shoulder with their backs to the stage. The weight is on their feet, like a boxer sitting in his corner before the beginning of the fight” (Søndergaard & Egelund, 1998: 3). “…we were there, 45 men lined up against 60.000 impatient audients. They were silent like the grave. When Sepultura entered the stage it exploded. The first sound from the loudspeakers started a true inferno of head-banging and jumping bodies. Hundreds of zombies went over the fence…” (Kongstad, 1996: 2). Definition: - Pulling people into the front area - Crowd surfers arriving Supporting Data: “Every minute 5 to 10 fans cross the low fence, but this is nothing compared to the concert with REM, I am assured by Lars who also was here Thursday night, and it is nothing compared to how it will be at the concert with Blur later tonight” (Larsen, 1995: 2). “Suddenly a new bather sails in, and two or three of them (front area) break the line and move fast towards the foam rubber covered fence, where they catch the next man or woman” (Søndergaard & Egelund, 1998: 3).
Attention to cues in the crowd by the Front Area Team
Definition: - React to what happens close to the front area - The crowd is reasonable and people care for and help each other to be safe Supporting Data: “In the nineties the front area guards got used to help hundreds of exhausted, fainted and dehydrated people over the fence in front of Orange Stage every day at Roskilde” (Jensen, 2003: 67). Front area guards received instructions on how to pull people from the crowd into the front area (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 70).
37
Time 3: Post-Accident - 2000-2008 Definition: - Safety requires collaboration between security guards and the crowd - Communication between the crowd and the security guards is important to achieve safety. Supporting Data: ”This year, security guards will be placed evenly throughout the crowd so that safety isn’t relegated to the other side of the ‘enemy lines’” (Danholm, 2001: 5) “After the accident last year we discovered that communication with the crowd was a problem” (Danholm, 2001: 5) The Wave breakers are replaced by a new fenced off audience area with four pits and a max distance of 4 meters from the fence to a person in the crowd (Danholm, 2001: 5). Definition: - Look for signs of people in the crowd needing help - Communication with the crowd Supporting Data: “Besides dealing with problems as they arise, security guards are also encouraged to chat with the crowd before the concert begins” (Danholm, 2001: 5) Examples of what to look for as a security guard during concerts: “It is the little girl in the crowd, which you have to look out for, but it is not easy.” “Ask people in the crowd if they are OK? Can they breathe? Do they need help?” (Crowd Safety Instruction Meeting, Saturday June 28. 2008). Definition: - Be pro-active in the security work before and during concerts. Look deeper into the crowd for cues. - The crowd cannot always take care of itself and be safe - It is important to learn about different aspects of crowd behavior Supporting Data: “Other new features include breaks in some of the concert programs, fenced-off audience area, video cameras and a crowdsurfing ban” (Danholm, 2001: 5)
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TABLE 4 Overview of the Pearl Jam Concert 10:34:58-10:35.15: 10:35:15-10:39:42: 10:39:54-11:04:16: 11:04:39-11:08:33: 11:08:41-11:13:11 11:13:28: 11:14:00: 11:17:00: 11:17:44: 11:18:05: 11:19:32: 11:24:30: 11:24:34-11:25:42: 11:25:05 11:26:35-11:26:43: 11:26:50-11:26:52: 11:27:00-11:27:15: 11:27:57-11:28:10: 11:28:40-11:29:14: 11:29:30-11:29:33: 11:29:37-11:29:40: 11:30:12-11:30:16: 11:32:06 11:48:30-11:49:20: 11:54:49-11:55:05: 11:55.23-11:55:23: 11:55:30:
The lead singer of Pearl Jam talks to the audience and ends with “Let’s go” Pearl Jam plays “COROUROY”, as their first tune Pearl Jam plays “BREAKERFALL,” “HAIL HAIL”, “ANIMAL”, “GIVEN TO FLY”, “EVEN FLOW”, “MFC”, and “HABIT” Pearl Jam plays “BETTER MAN” (People in audience fall down) Pearl Jam plays “LIGHT YEARS” Pearl Jam begins to play the tune “INSIGNIFICANCE” The Stage Manager starts talking to his girl friend on his cell phone The Camera Assistant starts talking on his cell phone Pearl Jam ends the tune “INSIGNIFICANCE” Pearl Jam begins to play the tune “DAUGHTER” The Stage Manager finalizes his phone call to his girl friend Pearl Jam ends the tune “DAUGHTER” The lead singer talks to the audience: “No more music for the next 5minutes” and “Please walk three steps back” (Music stopped) The Camera Assistant finalizes his phone call, learns that the music has stopped, and starts investigating why The lead singer talks to the audience: “Please look at your feet and see if somebody is laying down there.” Unknown person shouts “move back, and another unknown person answers/asks “what?” The lead singer talks to the audience: “Two steps back” Pearl Jam’s tour manager talks to the audience: “Two steps back” The lead singer talks to the audience: “Fuck You – three steps back” Pearl Jam’s tour manager talks to Pearl Jam’s Light manager in the light tower and asks for more light on the audience. Pearl Jam’s tour manager talks once more to Pearl Jam’s Light manager in the light tower and ask for more light on the audience. Pearl Jam’s tour manager talks to the audience “Hold your positions, we still have a problem up here in the front.” A doctor from the medical team calls 911 The master of ceremonies talks to the audience: “We don’t know what has happened – but 10-15 people are really badly hurt. You have to be patient until we know what has happened – take good care of yourself.” The master of ceremonies talks to the audience: “I shall ask you to continue withdrawing.” The master of ceremonies talks to the audience: “I shall ask you to continue withdrawing.” Tapes ends.
Source: Modified from Zeeland Public Prosecutor (2002: 46-47)
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