Crowd surfing: Encyclopedia II - Crowd surfing - Dangers of crowd surfing

Crowd surfing - Dangers of crowd surfing

In 2000, at the Roskilde Festival festival, nine people died and several were wounded because they were trampled during a Pearl Jam concert (also see CNN). Since then, crowd surfing has been made illegal at most festivals and concerts in Europe, and patrons can often expect to be ejected from the venue for partaking in the act. Critics of crowdsurfing argue that injuries can frequently occur not only when a surfer is accidentally dropped by the crowd from a height of some feet onto the floor (sometimes head first, to be trampled below) but also to innocent concert goers below who can sometimes be injured when a surfer lands on top of them, occasionally with some force. Sometimes audience members are accidentally kicked in the face and upper body by crowd surfers. Scratches are sometimes caused by zips or studs on clothing. Some audience members can be knocked over by crowd surfers causing them to be trampled by the dancing crowd. They will say that this makes crowd surfing both anti-social and dangerous.

Supporters of crowd surfing say that by standing in the mosh pit patrons should expect such behaviour as part of a rock show and by standing more towards the side or rear of the venue they can easily avoid such behaviour. Such people also state that serious injuries caused by crowd surfing are extremely rare. It is true that the majority of injuries caused by crowd surfing is only mild bruising, which occurs in any mosh pit without crowd surfing. Supporters will also argue that most crowd surfers are considerate and will wear soft shoes such as trainers, and refrain from wearing jackets in order to minimize injuries, and that it is common mosh pit etiquette to pick up anyone who has fallen over.

Crowd surfers also risk having personal items such as wallets or mobile phones stolen, or their shoes or clothes removed and thrown into an inconvenient location. This is known as "mosh-lobbing".

It seems that the two schools of thought are not compatible, and most larger venues have now taken steps to prevent the activity.

Within the rock concert community some individuals consider crowd surfing and stage diving to be a fine art and will often boast about any injuries they have sustained in the act.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dangers of crowd surfing", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki