Firsthand Report of the Athens Open Air Disaster
The Athens Open Air “I wannabe a” festival was supposed to take place on the 5th and 6th of July at Alimos beach (after it had already changed venues a couple of times, confusing all the people who were going to attend the festival) in Athens, Greece.
The promoters, Omicron Music, got a 150 meter long area of the beach (and about 30 meters wide) and set a pretty lame stage at the end of it. The stage was practically next to the sea but not in the sea (as the owner of the promotion company had told Metal-Temple that it would be – a great stage with a great show…my ass). It was also too damn small and too damn low. You had to be really tall, or really close to see what was going on and the bands had little space to perform, let alone move with ease.
On the 5th of July (Monday) the gates were supposed to open at 16:15 and finally opened 1,5 hours later with some thousands of people already suffering under the burning sun. Why? Because (now here’s something people don’t know) the bands were supposed to start their sound checks at 11:30 and they started at 15:30! Are the bands the ones to blame for this delay? Of course not. The “smart” promoters had assigned “friends” and people working for them at the cafeteria (the owner of Omicron Music also owns a cafeteria in the center of Athens) to go pick up the bands from the airport and be with them all the time…pretty professional don’t you think? Yes, it’s unbelievable, girlies, DJs and “neighbors” all in charge of the bands! How can one expect everything NOT to go wrong when this guy (the owner) used young people with a love for these bands (and Metal in general) instead of employing professionals to do the job?
So thousands of people gathered on the beach and waited till 19:15...when The Haunted finally came on stage (defying millions of problems caused by the lousy equipment provided by the promoters) and played for three quarters of an hour. I must add that The Haunted were pretty pissed off with the promoter before their appearance because he hadn’t given them all the money they had agreed for and they wouldn’t start. Huge dust clouds started rising in front of the stage as people were head-banging filling everyone’s clothes and bodies with sand, making it quite difficult to breathe. When asked, the promoters said that they didn’t expect the sand clouds from the thousands of people gathered there (!!!). The fun part was that they were also looking for a working microphone. The result was a sound check while the band was playing to find a working one. I repeat, while the band was playing!
In the meanwhile I had noticed that the security was really bad (we all guess that the promoter paid for less security than he should have paid for) and there was only one security guy separating the crowd from backstage (well I wouldn’t call it backstage but anyway) where most of the bands were sitting together with the press. Please note that there was no ambulance present, no doctor around, no first aid kit or whatever...nothing!
Read the full article at Metal Temple.
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