ALL participants at indoor concerts in future should be allocated seats, according to what is believed to be a key recommendation in the report of an interdepartmental working group.
The group was established to consider safety factors at such concerts following the death on May 11th last year of Bernadette O'Brien (16), a student, who was crushed at a Smashing Pumpkins concert at Dublin's Point Depot.
Ms O'Brien was from Shanagarry in east Cork and had travelled to Dublin to see her favourite group perform. Shortly after the concert opened, she was killed after being thrown to the ground during the dance phenomenon known as "moshing".
This weekend her parents, Noel and Anne Marie O'Brien, said that with another concert season about to open, it was disgraceful that a new code of practice for indoor concerts had not yet been published. Because of a pending legal action, the family has been advised not to comment further.
According to sources, the report of the working group will be distributed shortly, possibly this week.
As well as the main recommendation on seating participants at indoor concerts, the report will make several other observations on how safety could be improved when huge crowds assemble to hear live acts.
The Smashing Pumpkins concert was attended by more than 8,000 young people. The subsequent inquest into Ms O'Brien's death, which was held in Dublin, was told that 92 members of the audience were in need of medical attention within 15 minutes of the opening of the concert.
Brian Boyd writes:
Fans at rock gigs traditionally indulge in such customs as "moshing" (jumping excitedly up and down in a confined space), "crowd surfing" (being carried aloft over the heads of the audience) and "stage diving" (diving head first from the stage into the audience).
All such practices would be made impossible at all seater concerts. The main implication of the proposal is that large scale rock gigs at The Point would become considerably more muted affairs.
For this reason it is believed the proposal will not find favour with rock music fans. Outdoor concerts such as those periodically held at Slane Castle, the RDS and Pairc Ui Caoimh will not be affected by the working group's proposals.