The WHO Concert Disaster of 1979
It was December of 1979 and The WHO were on tour. They had just landed in the Queen City, Cincinnati Ohio for a concert at Riverfront Coliseum. The 18,000 seat Coliseum had been sold out and seating for the concert was a first come first served basis also known as festival seating. This meant that getting there early meant you were much more likely to get a good seat. A local radio station also incorrectly told listeners that ticket holders would be let in around 3pm on the day of the concert. Because of this on December 3rd 1979 the crowd waiting for the 7pm concert began to form at 1pm. The temperature was in the 30s and with the Ohio River nearby it likely felt much much colder.
3PM came and the doors were not opened, and the crowd had grown so much at this point that police were called in to monitor the thousands of people waiting outside. As the hours passed the crowd grew restless. The crowd was so closely packed together that a visible cloud of steam was radiating off of them.
As 7 passed the doors did not open. The Coliseum claimed they didn’t have enough staff to properly take tickets, and wanted the WHO to take another sound check. Some reports say the band was late which is why sound check hadn’t begun yet.
The Coliseum staff decided to begin letting people in, but instead of opening all of the doors they only opened two doors causing a crowd surge towards those two doors. At the same time sound check had just begun, but many thought the noises of the sound check were the concert beginning and the crowd surged even more. During this time many people were trampled and pushed around. Many people were injured and 11 people would be killed as a result of the crowd surges. It is said the crowd was so densely packed that many of the dead remained upright until the crowd dissipated.
Management of the Coliseum decided to go on with the concert, the dead and injured were removed while the WHO Played onstage. The band would not be informed of the deaths until after the concert.
The band played in Buffalo the next day dedicating the concert to those who died in Cincinnati. However not every member of the band felt like it was the right choice with one member saying he felt like they were in the wrong city, like they should still be in Cincinnati.
No one wanted to take blame for the disaster and loss of life with many different groups blaming each other. The City, The Coliseum management, the PR teams advertising the concert and many more all blamed each other for the disaster.
The disaster led to festival seating being banned in several places including the city of Cincinnati. This ban would last for 25 years. Riverfront Coliseum is still open today under the name Heritage Bank Center.
The WHO would not return to Cincinnati until May of 2022 when they would play a concert at TQL Stadium. The band offered many tributes and memorials to the victims of the 1979 diaster including showing photos of those who passed, having a highschool band play with them that some of the victims had attended, and even an opening act where one of the band members was injured that night.
Today the Cincinnati Concert Disaster remains one of the worst concert disasters in the United states, and although it brought many changes and safety regulations to concerts. It did not solve the problems as a crowd crush killed many at Astroworld in 2021.
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Today what is important is that we learn from the mistakes of our past and remember those who lost their lives in the tragedy.
- Walter Adams, Jr., aged 22
- Peter Bowes, aged 18
- Connie Sue Burns, aged 21
- Jacqueline Eckerle, aged 15
- David Heck, aged 19
- Teva Rae Inlow Ladd, aged 27
- Karen Morrison, aged 15
- Stephan Preston, aged 19
- Philip Snyder, aged 20
- Bryan Wagner, aged 17
- James Theodore Warmoth, aged 21
