Overcrowding and a crowd crush caused a Boiler Room show in Seoul, South Korea to be evacuated by police over the weekend. The event at Seoul’s SFactory on Saturday was part of Boiler Room’s World Tour series and featured Peggy Gou, Elkka, Jyoty, and Soichi Terada. Emergency services received reports of overcrowding and dispatched 11 fire engines and 42 firefighters to the venue. Five attendees were treated for breathing difficulties but no casualties or serious injuries were reported.
According to an eyewitness, the show was shut down between 12:30 AM and 12:40 AM, just before Peggy Gou was due to appear on stage. The event faced crowd control issues ahead of the South Korea-hailing artist’s headline set. The venue asked attendees to use a one-way system on staircases at the East and West of the building and created passages to enforce this, but fans allegedly began “cramming” the one-way system causing a bottleneck into the room. The witness also noted their fears over the heat inside the venue, explaining that everyone was sweating and struggling.
In a statement, Boiler Room confirmed crowd-flow issues causing safety concerns and leading to the early closure of the event. Contrary to reports, Boiler Room sold to the capacity set by their partner in Seoul, and at the time the event ended, they were under capacity. Following the event’s evacuation, Peggy Gou said she was “devastated” by its cancellation but that the safety of her audience is of paramount importance. Boiler Room apologized for failing to plan adequately and underestimating the crowd movement within the venue and is reviewing its systems internally to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
The event faced criticism online, giving a reminder of the tragic crowd crush incident in Itaewon, Seoul, in October 2022, which claimed the lives of 159 people. Peggy Gou is now working on a larger event alongside her team to take place in Seoul in the coming months. Boiler Room takes safety extremely seriously, with detailed measures at every event to ensure a situation like this doesn’t occur
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