Knebworth 2003 - a huge disappointment for thousands of fans.

The Robbie Williams gig at Milton Keynes were hailed as a huge success for Robbie and yep - Robbie entertained those members of the crowd that could see and hear him - he was, as always, magic. So the criticisms of Knebworth are certainly not about Robbie Williams himself, as far as we could see his performance was, as always, faultless.

The problem with this gig was what appeared to us to be very poor organisation that led, in our opinion, to leaving people at serious risk of injury due to the overcrowding and placing of food stalls in and amongst the crowd. There appeared to be a lack of organisers on site and we couldn't find any security when we tried. This venue was totally oversubscribed and as such we thought it was downright dangerous - this opinion was shared by someone working professionally on site as follows:

At Knebworth I was monitoring the crowd flow coming through the gates and using questionnaires on how safe the public felt about the concert environment they were in. I knew a few of the people that were working on security as I have been doing the job my self for over 3 years.

I was appalled at the management of the show, I did not feel safe at all, but the end of the three dates I got used to the level of insecurity I felt, but I don't believe it's acceptable. I was constantly aware of problem after problem.

I believe the capacity of the venue should never have been 125.000. When issues like sight lines were taken into account there were at least 1,000 people leaving due to not feeling safe, I estimate over 3,000 had very poor views of the stage, leading to people climbing up trees and such like, for it to be comfortable and for everyone to have a good view then I believe 100.000 should have been the maximum capacity. What is scary is that on the first night of the show, at 7pm it was only when we did the calculations based on the figures we had taken from the gates that the police realised they had a traffic problem and that 20.000 people were still on the motorway.

Another issue which I found scary was the amount of heavily pregnant women as the show, it was incredibly disproportionate to any other show I have ever worked and I saw a few get carted off by Medical services looking very ill indeed. They had a double barrier system in operation allowing 10.000 in the first area and the other 115.00 in the main section. There were food stalls that where very inappropriately placed, they would have been better along the edges but some where in the crowd area the queuing systems were appalling. The area after the second barrier had no access to medical aid, no toilets, no security and no water passed the areas that could be reached by security staff.

On the 2nd and 3 rd days the weather was very warm and problems with water access were awful. People once they were there couldn't move. On the third day I went into the crowd between acts. It took me 20 min's to get in and over and hour to get out, and I hadn't even got that far in. I spoke to some very angry people; they were concerned for their own safety. As I had access to the security break areas I had conversations with staff I knew and they where saying it was taking over two hours to get from one side of the site to the other. Any incidents they were called to were resolved or in a bad way by the time they go there. I didn't witness any that I would describe as major trauma but the potential for disaster was very high indeed and I know I don't want to be put in a situation like that again.

For ourselves we arrived at the site around 3-30pm and already you could not get into the arena it was heaving and it was appalling. OK we'd done our homework and parked outside of the grounds thus avoiding the parking and exiting problems - but oh boy, this event was unbelievable and I don't mean in a good way, everywhere you went (if you could actually move) people were complaining. As is my way I tried to complain - same old routine you can't find anyone official for love nor money - but I did find out from the information tent that many, many people were upset and disappointed - so much so that the address of the promoter was already written down ready to give out.

There was no safety information on this site - believe you me in a crowd of this size I would have thought that vital, in fact there was no information available anywhere and very poor signage. People were prevented from taking in sufficient water (it was a blistering hot day). In this vastly overcrowded arena there was not a sign of security or police, there certainly didn't appear to be sufficient toilet facilities.

You would have though that Knebworth should have known better and managed better, they've been putting on events for thirty years. So you have to ask the question - a clear cut case of profit before safety? another example of the contempt that rock music fans are held in? it certainly felt like it from a customers perspective.

On the first night of the gig the traffic chaos was so bad that thousands of fans couldn't make it to the venue, many fans left the venue due to their own safety fears. Read some of their comments here.

It later transpired that miscalculations had indeed occurred over occupancy - and we were told by the council that " However, after deducting areas where the audience did not have a reasonable view of the performance as outlined in the guide, a recalculation has shown that the viewing area figure fell short of the recommended standard. It also appears from comments received that the viewing screens provided for those at the rear of the crowd could have been bigger."

Further comments about the Knebworth event.

The response we got from the Tour Manager.