{"id":488566,"date":"2026-03-22T01:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/488566\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T01:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:46:08","slug":"sombr-stopped-a-show-over-fan-safety-how-risky-are-concerts-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/488566\/","title":{"rendered":"Sombr stopped a show over fan safety – how risky are concerts in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With more than 35 years’ experience, Allen has been head of security for artists including Oasis, Eminem, Shakira, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, he developed what is known as the “show-stop procedure, external<\/a>” – a rapid, co-ordinated response to crowd surges that can bring a concert to an immediate halt. <\/p>\n

The system was designed during Oasis’s 1997 Be Here Now Tour.<\/p>\n

“I was well versed with dynamic crowds but Oasis was a completely different beast,” Allen recalls. <\/p>\n

“Their crowd profile was off the Richter scale, and it was very apparent to me that we need to have something in place.”<\/p>\n

The procedure seems obvious now, but it established a chain of command that had previously varied from venue to venue. <\/p>\n

For the entire tour Allen stood at the safety barriers, maintaining radio contact with his team and never leaving the band’s line of sight. <\/p>\n

“I told Noel and Liam: ‘If I give the sign, there’s a reason to stop the show. It means this is life-critical; I’m not doing it to spoil your night,'” he later recalled, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It proved crucial at Manchester City Stadium in 2005. <\/p>\n

As Oasis played the opening bars of Lyla, the crowd rushed forward and a safety barrier cracked. <\/p>\n

Footage of the concert shows, external<\/a> people being lifted off their feet and carried along in a wave of bodies that hits the barrier then reverberates back through the audience.<\/p>\n

“In the control tower, they had CCTV and everything, but they couldn’t see what we could see [on the ground],” says Allen. <\/p>\n

Thanks to the show-stop system, “we had safety spotters who were able to radio the tower, and we stopped the show”, he says.<\/p>\n

Immediately, the stage lights went off, a floodlight illuminated the audience and all audio was cut, except for Noel Gallagher’s microphone, allowing him to calmly explain the situation before the band left the stage.<\/p>\n

Some 25 minutes later, after the barrier was repaired, Allen gave the go-ahead for a restart. <\/p>\n

“The band had full trust in my decision. Everything was safe, no injuries, no deaths. Everyone went home safely, reputations intact.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With more than 35 years’ experience, Allen has been head of security for artists including Oasis, Eminem, Shakira,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-488566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}