AOM Online Papers Submission # 10415

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Morten Thanning Vendelo, Copenhagen Business School, mtv@cbs.dk
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Sensegiving and Crowd Safety after the Pearl Jam Concert Accident
Abstract
Sensegiving has been studied as a process that occurs within the boundaries of a single
organization where managers are sensegivers, and employees are sensereceivers. Speed as it
relates to sensegiving has not been explored. Here, the focus is on how Roskilde rock music
Festival gives fast sense to festival crowds during concerts. This focus allows not only
exploration of the role of speed on sensegiving but also how it occurs across the boundary of
an organization rather than between managers and employees within it. Semi-structured
interviews, archival data, direct observations, and field notes are applied to study the
development of the sensegiving capacity of the security organization after the Pearl Jam
concert accident in 2000, where nine people died and 35 were injured. The analysis reveals
how understanding sensegiving as a boundary-crossing process that commence long before
the Festival starts created a new capability for generating fast sensegiving to the crowd during
actual concerts. These findings have important implications for organization theory as they
reframe the link between sensegiving and sensemaking processes in organizations.
Key words: Crowd safety, fast sensegiving, fast sensemaking
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INTRODUCTION
In the minutes immediately after the concert with Pearl Jam had been stopped at
Roskilde Festival, the Orange Stage Organization (OSO) found it difficult to make significant
portions of the crowd understand that an accident had happened, that the music would not
start again, and that they needed to quickly step back and give space for the crowd safety
guards to help the people who were injured in the crowd in front of Orange Stage. It took
approximately 5 to 10 minutes before the crowd safety guards could get to the victims, and
this delay mostly likely reduced the possibility of saving some of the victims. Rather than
acting upon messages given from the stage by the master of ceremonies, the Pearl Jam tour
manager and police officers, some people in the crowd started singing Pearl jam songs, such
as “Alive”, to bring the band back on the stage. Others threatened to beat up crowd safety
guards if the music did not start gain (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002). In essence, the OSO
was unable to influence the meaning construction of the crowd in a timely and effective
manner.
In the aftermath of the accident this inability to influence the meaning construction of
the crowd caused the OSO to consider how it could communicate better with the crowd. In
particular, the OSO wanted to be able to more effectively influence fast meaning construction
in the crowd by being faster at spotting and interpreting problems. Here, it is analyzed how
the OSO was reorganized to enable fast sensegiving to a crowd in an emergency situations
during a concert. Sensegiving is particular demanding in crowd emergency situations because
there is a need for preventing people from attempting to resume the interrupted activity
(Weick et al., 2005).
The paper is organized as follows. First, the sensegiving literature is reviewed and it is
shown that it focuses on manager to employee sensegiving inside organizations. Second, the
research methodology is presented. Third, the findings showing how fast sensegiving and
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crowd safety at Roskilde Festival has been accomplished after the Pearl Jam concert accident
in 2000 are described. Finally, in the conclusion the distinctive differences between crowd
sensegiving and sensegiving occurring within the boundaries of a single organization is
clarified.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Gioia and Chittipeddi define sensegiving as “…the process of attempting to influence
the sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred definition of
organizational reality” (1991: 442). Hence, they conceptualized the process of sensegiving as
a contradistinction to the process of sensemaking (Corvellec & Risberg, 2007). Later Weick
et al. (2005: 416) defined sensegiving as “a sensemaking variant undertaken to create
meanings for a target audience”.
In recent years sensegiving has attracted attention from scholars in management and
organizations (Lawerence & Maitlis, 2007). So far, sensegiving has predominantly been
studied within the boundaries of a single organization by focusing on top-down sensegiving
where the management is the sensegiver, and the broader membership of the organization is
the ‘sensereceiver’ (Bartunek et al., 1999; Maitlis & Lawrence, 2007; Smith et al., 2010;
Snell, 2002). Only Rouleau (2005) has looked at how sensegiving can take place “at the
organizational interface” (ibid: 1413), where middle managers act as daily interpreters and
sellers of strategic change to people outside the boundary of the organization.
Sensegiving is often dealt with in relation to strategic planning (Whetten, 1984),
strategic change (Bartunek et al., 1999; Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Gioia
& Thomas, 1996; Rouleau, 2005), organizational change (Snell, 2002; Smith, 2009), and
innovation and entrepreneurship (Hill & Levenhagen, 1995). Recently, Hope (2010) analyzed
how middle manager sensegiving materialize through political tactics, with “the objective of
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influencing decision makers’ meaning construction” (ibid: 212). Further, Jordan (2010: 399)
showed how sensegiving is important in teaching novices to engage in heedful team
interrelating.
Across these literatures, sensegiving occurs in situations with a well defined sender
and receiver. Consequently, sensegiving is typically seen as “an intentional effort to persuade
others suggesting that the sender has an intended meaning for a target audience” (Smerek, in
press: 3). Only Corvellec & Risberg (2007) object to this sender centric view of sense, and
argue that “it is non-sensical to speak of sense without referring to interpretation, and thus, to
a living audience” (ibid: 322). From this latter perspective, sensegiving involves influencing
an audience in the direction of a preferred definition of reality.
In the present paper the conceptualization of sensegiving presented by Chittipeddi &
Gioia (1991) will serve as the theoretical point of departure for the development of insights
about how organizations can accomplish speedy sensegiving to a crowd.
METHODOLOGY
Given the lack of research on external sensegiving it was decided to use an
exploratory, inductive method to build new theory (Pratt, 2009). A longitudinal single casestudy of the Orange Stage crowd security organization at Roskilde Festival (Yin, 2009) was
conducted. The data collection stretched over 10 years and focused on what happened before,
during and after the Pearl Jam concert accident.
Research context
At rock concerts the audience is facing the band which is playing from an elevated
scene. The stage is separated from the audience by a fence behind which crowd security
guards stand facing the crowd. At various times during a concert the crowd pushes forward to
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get closer to the band and the action in the mosh-pit – the area at the front of the stage where
people dance and express themselves in various ways. A surge in the crowd where people
push forward at the same time can generates waves, which can cause a section of the crowd to
collapse.
Crowd security guards perform various tasks such as helping people in the audience
over the fence if they are being crushed in the mosh-pit, and guiding the audience back into
the area behind the fence. The guards are positioned along the fence and each guard is tasked
to attend to a particular section of the fence. The fence area is characterized by constant
activity, which makes it difficult for a guard (1) to look deep into the crowd and observe what
is going on, and (2) to keep track of what is going on in other sections of the crowd. The
intensity of the task as well as the noise from the music makes coordination across guards a
challenge.
Roskilde Festival. The first Roskilde Festival (1971) was organized by two local high
school students. The following year Roskilde city council asked the local Roskilde Charity
Foundation, an organization engaged in kindergartens, youth clubs, and city fairs since the
1930s, to arrange an annual rock festival at the cattle showground in the city of Roskilde
which is located 25 miles west of Copenhagen, Denmark. Although the festival takes place in
a relatively small city in Denmark it is much more than a local and national event.
In 1971 the festival had 10,000 visitors on both days of the festival. The following
year, the festival was expanded to three days, and in 1990 to four days. The festival attracts
roughly 80,000 guests, 5000 media people, and 3000 artists of which 50,000 attend concerts
with popular bands such as Pearl Jam, Kings of Lean, Radiohead, Oasis, Metallica and
Coldplay. In 2000, twelve full-time employees were in charge of managing and planning the
Festival, and approximately 175 volunteers worked within 17 functional areas such as Parking
and Stage Construction. To realize the entire festival in 2000, more than 15,000 people
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volunteered to work in food stalls, build stages, and guard the camp grounds where the crowd
stays during the festival.
In 2000, 180 bands performed on four stages each of which had its own organization
that was enacted for the duration of the festival. Pearl Jam was playing on Orange Stage
which is the largest and most prestigious stage.
Data collection
Access to Roskilde Festival as a research site was formally obtained in May 2008.
Prior to gaining access, collection of archival data about the accident including publicly
available recordings of statements, interviews and other real-time data, took place. The data
collection started in August 2000 and ended in August 2010.
The data collection was focused on the history of the festival from 1971 to 2010.
Prolonged engagement with the data (Miles and Huberman, 1994) and the use of four data
collection mechanisms (semi-structured interviews, archival data, direct observations, and
fieldnotes) helped capturing how; a) slow realization across the crowd about the unfolding of
the accident caused a delay in giving space for the crowd safety personnel to rescue victims,
and b) the OSO reworked the crowd safety set-up in order to achieve crowd sensegiving
during concerts.
Semi-structured interviews. A total of six semi-structured interviews with six
informants was conducted. Four of the informants were working on Orange Stage on the night
of the accident, including one senior managers working back-stage, one manager working
onstage, one stage coordinator, and one crowd safety guard. Also, the current senior manager
in charge of festival safety and a senior stage coordinator wee interviewed. The interviews
lasted from 90 to 120 minutes. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and returned to the
informants for validation. The author conducted all interviews in person in order to build
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trusting relationships with the informants and harvest meaningful tales from the field which
was important due to the sensitive nature of the research (Dundon and Ryan, 2010). In the
initial interview protocol, questions were asked to identify (1) the schema that guided
operations around Orange Stage and how it developed over time and (2) patterns of action,
attention and sensemaking within the OSO before, during and after the Pearl Jam concert.
This data helped to validate and clarify themes identified in other data-sources, and to identify
previously unidentified critical events and work practices in OSO that were un-reported in
other data sources.
Conducting real-time semi-structured interviews with key informants about the
accident was difficult. First, most of the OSO was unavailable immediately after the accident
because they were being interviewed by the police and other authorities during 2000, 2001
and 2002. Second, several of the key informants were psychologically marked by the event
and due to ethical considerations it was decided not to interfere with their recovery. Third,
several informants declined to talk with the author because it was not until February 2010 that
the last family of the victims dropped the Supreme Court case against the organizers of the
Festival. Thus, three interviews were conducted after February 2010 when informants were
able to speak more freely.
Archival data. As summarized in Table 2, a total of 12,840 documents representing
8,299 pages of data were collected. The documents were organized into six specific categories
and three time periods not only to file, retrieve and analyze the data to understand what
happened before, during and after the Pearl Jam concert but also to better triangulate the data
and generate stronger theory: (1) accident investigations, (2) festival newspapers, (3)
newspaper articles, (4) books, (5) photographs, and (6) electronic documentaries.
INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE
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(1) Accident investigations. Based on interviews with 977 individuals, Roskilde Police issued
its written investigation (23 pages) on December 15, 2000. The Police concluded that crowd
behaviors were the main cause of the accident, and that Pearl Jam and the festival
management had no culpability. The investigation was criticized because the Police unit
investigating the accident had also issued the permits to conduct the festival and approved the
safety. In order to address these concerns, the Danish Ministry of Justice ordered the Zealand
Public Prosecutor to conduct an independent investigation which was published on June 11,
2002 (173 pages + 111 pages of appendices). It provided a much more elaborate account of
the accident. Both reports helped building a nuanced account of how members of OSA
attended to and made sense of cues before the music was stopped. Whenever possible,
independent confirmation of statements in the reports was sought through alternative data
sources such as books, newspaper articles and interviews.
(2) Festival newspapers. 126 issues of the festival newspaper were collected. These
data helped to generate an understanding of the evolution of the festival. For example, in the
early 1990s reports appear about how safety guards start to pull people over the fence at
Orange Stage due to an increase in the crowd behaviors (e.g., crowd-surfing and moshing).
(3) Newspaper articles. The media covered Roskilde Festival and the Pearl Jam
concert accident extensively. Articles published in the seven most widely circulated daily
Danish newspapers were collected. These newspapers are electronically indexed and archived
in the database Infomedia, which allowed for the collection of all articles containing the
search string “Roskilde Festival.” For the month after the accident 441 articles were
identified. 66% of the articles were published in the week immediately after the accident. The
author used the accounts in these articles provided by safety guards on duty during the concert
to (1) verify the information summarized in the two accident investigations and (2)
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understand how the Orange Stage interpretive schema influenced the processes of attending
to, making sense of, and responding to cues.
(4) Books. Roskilde Festival is a cultural event that has been documented by both
academics and lay-people. The author read broadly to develop an understanding of the history
of rock music and the development of the Orange Stage interpretive schema, including the
literatures on the history of popular music (Hamm, 1995; Negus, 1996), rock music and youth
culture (Frith, 1978; Laughey, 2006) and crowd management (Smith and Dickie, 1993;
Hargreaves and North, 1997; Perkins, 2004; Kemp and Hill, 2004; Kemp, Hill, Upton and
Hamilton, 2007).
(5) Photographs. Rockphoto (official service partner of Roskilde Festival) provided
access to their database, which contained a total of 6030 pictures taken at the festival (19972010). From this sample, the author carefully studied 251 pictures that captured crowd
behaviors and overviews of the Orange Stage area, including changes made to the area after
2000. He also carefully studied 294 pictures from the Festival in 2000 including pictures of
crowd behaviors during an Iron Maiden concert the night before the accident. The other
photos from established a general sense of festival behaviors over the years. Further, he
compared photos of particular concerts which the informants described as “intense” with
written statements about the same concert published by a third party in other data sources to
capture intense crowd behaviors.
(6) Electronic documentaries. Roskilde Festival has been captured in a number of
documentaries. The author obtained nine electronic documentaries to develop accounts of the
cognition and action of the crowd and the safety guards. In a 45 minute “real-time” radio
montage based on an un-official recording of the Pearl Jam concert three crowd safety guards,
who were on duty during the concert, and seven members of the audience, some of which
barely escaped alive, re-enact the concert until it was stopped. The montage creates a feeling
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in the listener of ‘being there’, a feeling of the pressure and excitement of the 50,000 bodies
in the crowd, and the beat and pull of the stage and the push to come closer to the stars. All
nine documentaries contained a large number of sequences revealing an array of taken-forgranted assumptions and behaviors on both sides of the fence. The author compared these
sequences with accounts obtained from other data sources to better understand command
structures, coordination practices and expectations around Orange Stage before, during and
after the accident. Finally, he used 102 minutes of footage from 16 videos at youtube.com,
and other available material to evaluate the intensity of the 180 concerts that took place on
Orange Stage from 1990 to 2000. By comparing behaviors the author found that 63 of these
concerts had an intensity level, which equaled or exceeded the Pearl Jam concert.
Direct observations. Following Sutton’s (1991) study of bill collector, the author
volunteered to work as a crowd safety guard at Orange Stage during the Festivals in 2008 and
2009. He took part in all activities required to become a certified crowd safety guard. In 2008
and 2010 he attended a two-day (four + two hours) mandatory course for volunteers joining
the safety crew. Lectures, exercises and written material covered such topics as stress
management, decision making under pressure, and crowd psychology. These data generated a
rich understanding of crowd behaviors and the Roskilde Festival safety organization.
The author worked for five days and a total 43 hours as a crowd safety guard during
fifteen concerts at Orange Stage. He was assigned to a team consisting of 14 crowd safety
guards, including the team leader. This direct experience helped understanding how guards
interact with the crowd before and during concerts, and how the crowd receives safety
instructions from crowd safety personnel. This knowledge was important in strengthening our
ability to make reliable interpretations of the archival data. Direct observations generated
trusting relationships with a broad sample of ‘insiders’ which helped the author to engage in
informal conversations to validate accounts about what happened on the night of the accident.
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Fieldnotes. During the fieldwork the author also took comprehensive field notes
(Emerson, Fretz and Shaw, 1995) as time and context permitted by using a digital recorder to
quickly capture observations and impressions. He made a total of 42 recordings which lasted
16 hours and 20 minutes. All field notes and recordings where transcribed verbatim and
organized into four categories: (1) briefings and de-briefings by team leaders and supervisors
before and after concerts, (2) recordings of conversations between guards during concerts, (3)
presentations by speakers at safety seminars, and (4) real-time reflections by the author. These
recordings helped to validate and cross-check the archival data because it gave not only a
‘hands-on’ understanding of the intensity of this type of work but also a possibility to revisit
the authors experience in the field. Recordings from the Slipknot concert in 2009 were
especially important because it was classified by the safety organization as the wildest concert
on Orange Stage after the accident. It was used as a reference point by managers in the safety
organization to describe high intensity safety work to crowd safety guards which helped
capturing in vivid details what it means to work and remain calm as a guard “in an inferno of
jumping bodies, extreme noise, alcohol and wild dancing” (Field notes). These recording also
enabled understanding how an “inferno” of cues influences individual and collective
processes of attention and sensemaking. The live recordings of briefings were also important
because here guards received instructions about “cues to keep an eye on and expectations
about guard behaviors and the difficulty of the safety work in relation to the specific concert”
(Field notes).
Data Analysis and Coding
The analytical approach used by Gioia and his co-authors (Corley and Gioia, 2004;
Gioia at al., 2010) was adopted, and used constant comparative techniques (Strauss and
Corbin, 2008; Suddaby, 2006) where qualitative data are gathered and analyzed in a
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systematic and iterative manner to investigate the two main research questions. In particular, a
two part “insider-outsider” interpretive research approach was used to analyze the data
(Bartunek, Foster-Fishman and Keys, 1996; Gioia et al., 2010). First, the ‘inside’ perspective
of how the security guards experienced the Pearl Jam concert (Van Maanen, 2011) was
established. Second, the ‘outside’ perspective of the researcher by engaging in a higher-level
theoretical analysis was established, including the linking of the inside perspective with the
existing literature (Corley and Gioia, 2004). Through an iterative analysis “delay” and
“sensegiving” emerged as “transparently observable” (Eisenhardt, 1989: 537) phenomena in
the data, which were used to craft an emergent theory of crowd sensegiving around (Pratt,
2009).
More specifically, the analytical process approach (Langley, 1999) consisted of four
phases. First, development of a timeline to chronicle “who did what, and when” (Maguire and
Hardy, 2009: 153) in the OSO after the concert had been stopped. Based on the time-line
developed by the police and the public prosecutor, and which they established by using videofootage and various recording of the concert to determine the exact start and finish of each of
the messages given from the stage after the Pearl Jam concert stopped (see table 2 and figure
1). Knowing when a particular message was delivered or a particular event took place was
important because it helped comparison of statements from various data-sources. For
example, if a crowd safety guard experienced a particular crowd behavior before the police
officers arrived, but the same crowd behavior was observed by another crowd safety guard
after the police officers arrived, it could be pin-pointed with great accuracy on the time-line
when particular individuals located across the chain noticed particular crowd behaviors and
initiated particular actions.
INSERT TABLE 2 and FIGURE 1 AROUND HERE
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Second, a data-structure (see Figure 2 below) was developed by first identifying
components of raw data across data sources, which ranged from a single line to entire
paragraphs that captured ideas and themes such as “message ambiguity” and “lack of
understanding” in the language of the people in the crowd. These first order codes were
organized into data-tables that supported a single theme or topic across data sources – a
technique termed in-vivo coding (Strauss and Corbin, 2008). These first order codes were
identified by using the search function in Word as well as manually coding the data. In
particular, keywords such as “confused messages” and “aggressive behavior” were written in
the margin of interview transcripts and correlated these keywords with similar keywords
identified in other documents. Three basic questions were used to sort through the raw-data
and develop first-order categories: (1) Did concerts in the past shape the way people in the
crowd was thinking and acting after the Pearl Jam concert stopped? (2) Why did it take time
to make the crowd step back? (3) After the accident, how did the festival security
organization change?
INSERT FIGURE 2 AROUND HERE
Third, the data was analyzed by looking for patterns and overlap among first-order
codes to assemble these into higher-order themes – a technique termed axial coding (Strauss
and Corbin, 2008). This analysis is conducted to identify themes at a higher level of
abstraction that potentially can be used as anchor points for developing a grounded theory
(Gephart, 2004; Gioia et al., 2010). In order to isolate such themes, the first-order categories
were merged, abandoned and revised until six second-order themes emerged.
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Fourth, in an attempt to further condense the data into meaningful patterns and
relationships (Pratt, 2009), the six second-order categories were amassed into three aggregate
dimensions that captured the overarching concepts relevant for understanding crowd
sensegiving.
The four stages in the analysis unfolded in an iterative process which continued until
further data collection failed to reveal new relationships or alternative explanations at which
point a solid and plausible data-structure had been developed (Corley and Gioia, 2004). In
line with Gioia et al (2010), none of the data were classified as a ‘finding’ until a category and
its relationship to other categories had been substantiated across multiple data sources. The
quotes used in the findings narrative to convey the perspective of the ‘insiders’ who
experienced the accident as well as the reworking of the crowd safety set-up, therefore,
represent only substantiated findings.
THE ORANGE STAGE CASE
After the concert with Pearl Jam had been stopped at 11:24 pm it was difficult to
influence the meaning making of the crowd. A Front Area Guard explained “… that many in
the crowd expressed that they wanted the concert to start again ... (and) that some in the
crowd threatened to beat him up” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 63). Many had used
much energy to sustain a spot close to the front-arch fence and the band. They were reluctant
to step back so the crowd safety guards could help the injured. For example, shortly after the
concert had been stopped, the lead singer and the tour manager asked the crowd to take two or
three steps back. However, it was not until this message had been repeated three times that the
crowd began to move back (Roskilde Police, 2000). The lead singer said:
“I need to tell you something, it has nothing to do with music, it has something to do with
personal safety, you guys are amazing, but there seems to be a problem up front here, and I’m
gonna ask you to stop for five minutes, all right, so we will not have any music for five
minutes, and I want you to pretend that I’m your best friend, and do me a favor OK? Because
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you have some other best friends up front here, that are hurting OK? So if you take three
steps back, and I’ll ask you to count to three OK? … So let’s try it together OK? Give me an
answer: Yes, if you want to help me. (The crowd shouts YES) All right, … I will count to three,
and I want you to take two steps back OK? One, two, three” (Schwartz & Hinman, 2000:
44:41-45:48).
Unfortunately, this message did not help the crowd to understand the seriousness of the
situation. Many did not step back.
“It is conceivable that the crowds tardiness in stepping back, in spite of the lead singers
tenacious attempts to make the crowd do so, occurred because the crowd did not immediately
and to the full extent understand the seriousness of the situation, because the messages given
to the crowd from the stage were communicated in an unprofessional way” (Zealand Public
Prosecutor, 2002: 28).
The crowd reacted differently to the pause in the music announced by the lead singer.
Some were aggressive. Some were not aware of what was happening. Some believed the
pause was part of a happening. For example, when the first police officers arrived in the front
arch at 11:34 pm they experienced that the crowd was dissatisfied, and were throwing plastic
cups onto the stage. “[The police officers] considered searching the area in front of the stage
for injured people, but because of the crowd’s aggressive behavior, they did not find it safe to
do so” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 133). Furthermore, many in the crowd believed that
the concert would resume. To keep the party going they started to sing.
“In the throng close to the stage many from the crowd could not see and comprehend what
was happening. Many experienced that the front area guards were unnecessary aggressive,
because they shouted in order to get people out of their way, and thus, a grotesque scenery
suddenly took place. A larger group in the crowd continuously sang the Pearl Jam tune
‘Alive’, in order to get the band to continue the concert. 24 years old Michael Sebastian
Christensen: ‘Spontaneously, we, two or three times, started singing ‘I’m still alive’, and it
was really cool, because people joined in. I know it sounds terrible in hindsight, but we had
no idea about what had happened, and that people had died. We simply did not understand
why we should pull back. We just wanted to listen to Pearl Jam.” (Berlingske Tidende, 2000:
1).
Other festival guests had observed the hole in the crowd, but thought that it was the result of
some kind of sit-down happening. A police officer noted: “It seemed like they did not
understand, that they were witnessing a big tragedy” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 139).
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One of the police officers approached the Stage Manager and asked him several times
to urge the crowd to step back. The Stage Manager did not think, however, that it was
necessary. He could see space behind the front rows of the crowd. Also, he did not want to
cause unnecessary panic in the crowd. The Stage Manager also asked the Master of
Ceremonies to not address the crowd until they knew what should happen next. The Master of
Ceremonies did not comply, and “was subsequently criticized by the Stage Manager, because
he had not cleared it with him” (Zealand Public Prosecutor, 2002: 59). When the Master of
Ceremonies approached the crowd for the second time he said: “Unfortunately, the Pearl Jam
concert is over. It really looks bad, and therefore, Pearl Jam has decided not to continue
playing” (Ritzau, 2000).
Around 00:17 the Commanding Police Officer requested to talk with a representative
from the festival management at Orange Stage. He wanted the ‘pause music’ to be turned off.
It was impossible to search the area in front of the stage before the crowd had left the area,
and as long as the canned pause music was playing, the crowd would not leave. They believed
it signaled that the concert would start again. Stopping the pause music was not possible
immediately. It was only the Festival Manager who could do so, and he was in a meeting.
Yet, the music was eventually stopped around 00:25. Thereafter, 8-10 police officers searched
the area for more victims. They did not find any.
Around 01:00 the Festival Manager went on stage and explained that approximately
20 persons had been injured because the pressure in the crowd had been too high, and that
some were dead. He also asked for one minute of silence in respect of the dead, and
concluded with the words “Sleep peacefully or take a silence moment. Be good to each other
and take care” (Albrecht et al., 2000: 2).
ORGANIZING FOR CROWD SENSEGIVING
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After the accident, the OSO reworked the crowd safety set up. Less than a month after
the accident, the Festival Manager established a list consisting of 100 suggestions for
improving crowd safety. In particular, the list focused on the fact that (a) the crowd did not
understand what was happening, (b) parts of the crowd were aggressive, (c) the crowd safety
personnel faced difficulties in communicating with the crowd, and (d) lack of clarity about
division of responsibilities on the stage.
Priming of Festival Guests
The crowd’s receptiveness to messages given from the stage appeared as a central
problem for OSO when it attempted to rescue victims after the concert had been stopped.
Consequently, increasing the crowd’s receptiveness to communication about safety issues
became an important criterion in the redesign of the festival. In order to cultivate crowd
receptiveness to messages from the stage, safety priming of the festival guests now begins
long before the festival opens, and the guests arrive at the festival site. The Roskilde Festival
web-site features a set of sub-site about safety. These sites cover topics such as safety at the
stages, good advice when attending a concert, and camping safety. The sites give a brief
introduction to the safety organization and explain how festival management has security
measures to ensure that the guests will have a good festival experience, and that without
safety and security there can be no festival. The Roskilde Festival program, which many
guests either download or receive when they arrive to the festival, also gives information
about safety. In particular, it lays out the festival safety approach and pre-primes the guests
before they actually attend the concerts (see A, B and C in Table 3).
The priming of festival guests continues at the festival. The rules for crowd behavior
are continuously presented to the guests when they attend concerts. For example, the two big
screens next to Orange Stage presents ‘rolling’ messages such as “Attention! No crowd
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surfing please” or “Do not push – Do not run towards the stage”, for at least an hour before
every concert begins. Also, festival guest are encouraged to contact crowd safety personnel
with their questions and concerns (see D and E in Table 3).
A New Relationship with the Crowd
Immediately after the Pearl Jam concert had been stopped, front area guards and
police officers experienced hostile and aggressive behaviors, and a non-collaborative attitude
from parts of the crowd. It was as if parts of the crowd enacted a ‘them versus us
relationship’, or a “they-relation” (Schütz, 1964; 1967) with the crowd safety personnel.
Rather than listening to and collaborating with the crowd safety personnel, these parts of the
crowd wanted to beat up front area guards and/or threw items at both them and the police. As
noted by the new Safety Coordinator, “After the accident last year we discovered that
communication with the crowd was a problem” (Danholm, 2001: 5). In order to resolve this
problem, the OSO began to define crowd safety as a collective issue that could only be
achieved through collaborative between the crowd and the crowd safety personnel. As a
result, the OSO began to focus on nurturing a different type of relationship which can best be
described as a ‘we-relation’. It centers on building an inter-subjective understanding between
the two parties based on common experiences and respect (see F, G and H in Table 3).
Engaging in dialogue with members of the audience became a key component of the
safety work. The dialogue can best be perceived as a way of changing the relationship from
‘they relations’, where the two parties are more or less anonymous to each other, and thus,
present themselves to each other as ideal types e.g., crowd surfer or crowd safety guard, to
what we describe as ‘we-relations’, in which the parties share a set of common experiences,
and thus, have a more advanced picture of one another. For crowd safety personnel the weattitude is promoted during obligatory courses for volunteers working in the Orange Stage
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security organization. During the course the crowd safety personnel is “encouraged to chat
with the crowd before the concert begins” (Danholm, 2001:5).
A New Physical Set-Up
In the hours after the accident leading members of the OSO started to perceive the
physical set-up in the area in front of Orange Stage, with the front arch and the wavebreakers, as much less safe than before. Some even began to search for an immediate solution
to keep the festival going. In particular, they considered renting fences used along the roads
during bicycle road races, but could not get a hold of the owners of these fences.
After the festival the OSO asked several safety experts in the UK and Holland to
solicit ideas for a new crowd safety organization. Leading members of the OSO quickly
settled on a multi-barrier system because they wanted to lessen the pressure from the crowd
on the first barrier closest to the stage. The chosen barrier system was designed in
collaboration with the Dutch firm Mojo Barriers. It was used for the first time in 2001 (see
photo 3 and 4). The new barrier system allowed the crowd safety personnel to operate in
physical proximity to the crowd (see I, J, K and L in Table 3).
“[Four fenced] corridors [divide] the area in front of Orange Stage [into four ‘cages’]. [The
corridors] are manned with orange dressed people, who can … step up [on the fences] and
survey the crowd. When viewed from the side the width of the four cages is approximately
eight meters, and thus, there will never be more than four meters between the guards
dressed in orange and any person in the crowd. … The guards dressed in red [pitsupervisors]… are in constant radio contact with the four [spotters] on the stage … [and
the security manager].” (Roskilde Festival Avis 2001 #3, June 29. – Article on page 2,
titled: “Båsene virker”.
The central reason for choosing a multi-barrier system was that the OSO wanted control over,
how close people could stand in the crowd. They also wanted to ensure easy access the crowd
to make it easy to rescue people by having access into the crowd from several sides.
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Video surveillance of the crowd was also implemented to supplement the eyes of the
crowd safety personnel. Five computer controlled cameras provide live pictures to three
screens in the Orange Stage Security Office, enabling the Security Manager to ask for closeup pictures of situations in specific parts of the crowd.
Reorganization of the Crowd Safety Teams
After 2000 crowd safety guards were reorganized in three ways. First, the size of the
safety teams was downscaled from 24 to 14 guards including the team leader. Second, the
number of teams was increased from four to 20. More guards were needed in the new mojobarrier system (see contract between photo 1 and 2, and photo 3 and 4). An important
consequence of these changes was that the guards were working closer to large parts of the
crowd, and thus, more people in the crowd experienced contact with the crowd safety guards
before and during concerts. Third, each team works together with two crowd safety
supervisors who carry a radio for communication when on duty. The physical proximity
between crowd safety guards and the crowd, as well as the we-relations between guards and
crowd enables the OSO to sustain attention of the crowd, which is a pre-condition for fast
sensegiving, should that be needed during a concert. Also, it allows people in the crowd to
approach guards and ask for clarification about messages given from the stage, and guards to
provide guidance to people in the crowd who have not understood messages given from the
stage. The radios carried by the Crowd Safety Supervisors also provide a ‘tool’ for both fast
sensegiving and fast sensemaking. The radios enable fast sensemaking as the supervisor
can quickly report crowd problems to the security manager, who can ask; a) other supervisors
to look at the situation, and b) the video operators in the security office to zoom in on the
situation, and eventually feed these pictures to the security manager’s TV monitor (see M, N,
O, P, Q, R, S, T, and U in Table 3).
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CONCLUSION
Fast sensegiving requires fast sensemaking because without meaning there can be no
sensegiving. In the case of crowd sensegiving there is a need for fast sensegiving cycles, or
high pulsing between sensegiving and sensemaking. Otherwise it will be difficult to avoid
delays like the one that appeared after the Pearl Jam concert had been stopped, and which
most likely reduced the possibility of saving some of the victims. Put differently, in some
contexts slow sensegiving cycles can be risky, and contribute to the death of people.
Fast sensegiving cycles consist of alternations between fast sensemaking - attempts to
understand – and fast sensegiving – attempts to influence. The narrative shows that fast
sensegiving cycles can be achieved when organizational materialities (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007;
Leonardi & Barley, 2010; Whiteman & Cooper, in press) such as mojo fences, video and TV
screens are put in place so they provide for creating multiple types of sense-in-action, quick
communication and scrutinizing of observed safety issues (sensemaking). Nevertheless, to
achieve crowd sensegiving, fast sensegiving cycles must be accompanied by crowd
receptiveness and sustained crowd attention. Just like sensegivers operating within the
boundaries of a single organization (Chittipeddi & Gioia, 1991; Maitlis & Lawrence 2007),
the sensegivers who attempt to give sense to a crowd cannot assume that they will have the
attention of the people whom they try to influence. Neither can they assume that the crowd is
receptive to the meaning they attempt to give to them. To succeed, crowd sensegivers must
engage in priming and relation building aimed at making the crowd receptive and attentive to
new meanings. In this paper, we have tried to show that this task is difficult when sensegiving
is directed at a crowd where no ‘we-relations’ have been cultivated. Future research could
investigate in further detail how the process of crowd sensegiving is likely to become
lengthier and more time-consuming than sensegiving processes occurring within single
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organizations where people might have a stronger sense of belonging. We need to understand
much more about how sensereceivers can be primed to understand their own role and identity
as sensereceivers and co-creators of safety.
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TABLE 1
Quantitative Details of Archival Data
Source
Accident
Investigations:
Roskilde Festival
Newspapers:
Newspaper
Articles from1:
- Aktuelt2
- BT
- Berlingske
Tidende
- Ekstra Bladet
Information
- Jyllandsposten3
- Politiken4
Books about
Roskilde Festival
Books on Rock
Music Culture,
including
Roskilde Festival
Total
Pre-Accident
July 1. 1977 June 30, 2000
Documents
Pages
-
Accident
July 1 –
July 31, 2000
Documents
Pages
-
Post-Accident
August 1. 2000 July 5. 2010
Documents
Pages
2
307
56
362
4
16
66
726
214 (3)
885 (10)
1171 (19)
71 (1)
295 (3)
390 (6,5)
23 (4)
92 (9)
57 (15)
7 (1,5)
31 (3)
19 (5)
31 (4)
1101 (28)
1296 (57)
10 (1,5)
367 (9)
432 (19)
804 (9)
89 (2)
363 (7)
922 (12)
268 (3)
29 (1)
121 (2)
307 (4)
66 (4)
21 (4)
79 (19)
103 (28)
22 (1,5)
7 (1,5)
26 (6,5)
34 (9)
1061 (20)
477 (15)
1801 (66)
2042 (96)
354 (7)
159 (5)
600 (22)
681 (32)
3
520
0
0
8
1558
2
4509
388
2751
0
445
0
162
1
7886
192
5386
1
We searched every newspaper twice in the three periods. In the first search, we used the search word “Roskilde
Festival.“ In the second search, we used the search words “Roskilde Festival” + “Safety.” Both searches were
performed on July 14, 2010. The results of the second search are listed in parentheses, but included in the
numbers that are not in parentheses. The results of the second search indicate that safety was a non-issue in the
sense that very little was written about safety at the Roskilde Festival.
2
The newspaper Aktuelt was closed on April 6, 2001
3
Included in the numbers for Jyllandsposten are the articles appearing in JP Roskilde (1996-1997), which was
the Roskilde Festival Newspaper in these years.
4
Included in the numbers for Politiken are the articles appearing in Roskilde Politiken Live (1991, 1995, 1998,
2000), which was the Roskilde Festival Newspaper in these years.
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TABLE 2
Overview of events after the concert stopped (graphically illustrated in figure 1)
11:24:34-11:25:42:
11:25:05
11:26:35-11:26:43:
11:26:50-11:26:52:
11:27:00-11:27:15:
After 11:27:15:
11:27:57-11:28:10:
11:28:40-11:29:14:
11:29:30-11:29:33:
11:29:37-11:29:40:
11:30:12-11:30:16:
Ca. 11:32:
Ca. 11:34:30:
11:37:
11:48:30-11:49:20:
11:54:49-11:55:05:
11:55.23-11:55:23:
00:17:
00:25:
Ca. 01:00:
(1) Lead Singer talks to the audience: “No more music for the next 5
minutes” and “Please walk three steps back” (Concert stopped)
Camera Assistant finalizes his phone call, learns that the music has
stopped, and starts investigating why
(2) Lead Singer talks to the audience: “Please look at your feet and see
if somebody is laying down there.”
Unknown person shouts “move back, and another unknown person
answers/asks “what?”
(3) Lead Singer talks to the audience: “Two steps back”
Crowd begins to give space to Crowd Safety Guards to rescue people
(4) Tour Manager talks to the audience: “Two steps back”
(5) Lead Singer talks to the audience: “Fuck You – three steps back”
(6a) Tour Manager talks to Light Manager in the light tower and asks
for more light on the audience.
(6b) Tour Manager talks once more to Light Manager in the light tower
and ask for more light on the audience.
(6c) Tour Manager talks to the audience “Hold your positions, we still
have a problem up here in the front.”
Victims begin to arrive to Medical Tent, and a Medical Doctor calls
911.
Police officers arrive at Orange Stage, one of them asks the Stage
Manager to address the crowd and get it to move back. The Stage
Manager does not find it necessary to do so, as he can see space behind
the first rows of people, and does not want to be the cause of panic in
the crowd. Also, the Stage Manager says to the police officer that he
has no authority to do so.
First ambulance arrives.
(7) Master of Ceremonies talks to the audience: “We don’t know what
has happened – but 10-15 people are really badly hurt. You have to be
patient until we know what has happened – take good care of yourself.”
(8) Master of Ceremonies talks to the audience: “I shall ask you to
continue withdrawing.”
(9) Master of Ceremonies talks to the audience: “I shall ask you to
continue withdrawing.”
Vice Police Commissioner wants the music at Orange Stage turned off,
as the crowd will not leave the area in front of the stage, but it is impossible as only the Festival Manager can make this decision, and he is in
a meeting.
The music at Orange Stage is turned off.
(10) Festival Manager addresses the crowd from Orange Stage.
Source: Modified from Zeeland Public Prosecutor (2002: 46-47)
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Table 3: Representative Supporting Data for Each 2nd Order Theme in Figure 2
2nd order
Themes
Pre-Festival
Priming
Representative (1st order) Data
A) “Twelve Good tips from safe festival
When you go to see concerts at Roskilde Festival it is very important that you take care of both yourself and others. Below we
give 12 good tips from Safe Festival (Tryg Festival), which are good to know before you head towards the stages.
- Drink plenty before the concert – That is water, not just alcohol!
- Arrive in good time for the concert instead of pushing your way through the crowd to get to the front.
- It can be an overwhelming experience to be close to the stage at a concert if you have never tried it before. People are cramped
together and the crowd is pushing. Be careful.
- Before the concert make sure to locate the escape routes so you know which way to go if the crowd is pushing too hard.
- Do not be violent or aggressive – the other festival guests, just like you, just want to have fun at the festival.
- Never take part in crowd waves, slam dance or run in chains – often people get hurt during these activities.
- Do not crowd surf or encourage other to do it. It is not allowed and you risk to be expelled from the festival.
- Do not follow requests from artists, stage hosts or other audience to behave in a way that can bring people around you in
danger.
- Beware of things thrown from the stage such as T-shirts, drum sticks, tambourines, microphones and CDs.
- Notice information about cancellations and delays of the concert.
- Do not block exits or paths that lead away from the concert area.
- If the crowd is pushing too much – move to the back and to the side of
the crowd.” (source: http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/uk/practical/safety/good_advice_when_attending_a_concert/).
B) “Follow all safety instructions and take an active part in ensuring that you – and everyone around you – have a positive
concert experience” (Christensen, 2008: 42).
On Festival
Priming
C) “Three areas where you can help: Pay attention to the communication security. Pay attention to your friends and those closely
by. If needed, seek help with staff members wearing vests (crowd safety personnel)” (Christensen, 2008: 42).
D) “Please avoid: Crowd surfing (prohibited at all stages and results in immediate explusion from the festival). Human chains
(you endanger the safety of others by creating unrest in the crowd). Rushing and moshing towards the stage (this can create
waves among the audience and pose a risk for someone falling down). Sitting on shoulders (this ruins the concert for those
behind you)” (Christensen, 2008: 43).
E) Messages displayed on the two screens next to Orange Stage.
1: “Welcome to the show – Take care of each other”
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We-relations
2: “Rules of safety – Watch: The person next to you – Observe: The security announcements – Contact: The Crowd Safety
Personnel”
3: “Do not push – Do not run towards the stage”
4: “Attention! No sitting on shoulders please”
5: “Attention! No crowd surfing please”
6: “For questions or comfort: Contact the Crowd Safety Personnel”
7: “Thank you for making this a great festival!”
(Source: Photos taken at Roskilde Festival, July 3. 2010).
F) “Besides dealing with problems as they arise, security guards are also encouraged to chat with the crowd before the concert
begins” (Danholm, 2001: 5).
G) “Exchange stories with the crowd” and “Get in touch with the crowd” (Per Skovsgaard at Crowd Safety Course, part 1, June
28. 2008).
Physical
Proximity
H) “The master of ceremonies at Roskilde Festival are not stand-up comedians, like at other music festivals, because Roskilde
Festival wants to establish friendly/good/confidential relations between the crowd and the master of ceremonies, so that the
master of ceremonies is taken serious by the crowd if a serious message has to be given to the crowd” (Steen Bechman at Crowd
Safety Course, part 1, June 28. 2008).
I) ”This year, security guards will be placed evenly throughout the crowd so that safety isn’t relegated to the other side of the
‘enemy lines’” (Danholm, 2001: 5).
J) “The Wave breakers are replaced by a new fenced off audience area with four pits and a max distance of 4 meters from the
fence to a person in the crowd “(Danholm, 2001: 5).
K) “The area will be divided into four fenced sections within which the festival will position a number of observers, who before,
during and after every concert will attend to the security of the crowd” (Hansen, 2000: 2).
Fast
sensemaking
L) “The task of the crowd safety personnel is to help the audience have a good concert experience, and to spot eventual
problems. The observations made by the crowd safety personnel are but one component of the systems warning capability. With
their help early intervention can prevent unfortunate and dangerous situations. Their task is to be especially attentive to
potentially dangerous behaviors in the crowd” (Roskilde Festival, 2007: 5).
M) “During concerts the Security Manager is constantly in contact with:
- The Supervisors, who work with the Crowd Safety Teams in the Pit Area, and who carrier a radio and wear yellow vests.
- The Sensors, who can be send into the crowd in order to feel the mood in the crowd.
- The Intervention teams, who can be send into the crowd in order to solve specific situations.
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-
The Media Crew in the Security Office who performs online video surveillance of the crowd.
The Sensors, who observe the crowd from the stage.” (Steen Bechman at Crowd Safety Course, part 1, June 28. 2008).
N) “The benefit of using video cameras … is that it is possible to monitor the crowd and detect problems very fast.” (Danholm,
2001: 5).
O) “[T]oday, there are sensors in all the fences, which constantly register the pressure from the crowd, and a video-system has
been installed to monitor the crowd from above. …‘All the new systems have made it possible for the crowd safety guards to
concentrate on servicing the crowd, rather than on policing it’, says Henrik Bondo Nielsen.” (Roskilde Festival Avis 2010, July
1. – Article on page 6: Big Mother is Watching).
P) “The security manager … can call the security office – they operate all the monitors – and say ‘can you please give me some
live-feed from area so and so in the crowd because I think there is something going on there that needs our attention.” (Talk,
Safety Coordinator, Crowd Safety Seminar, June 30. 2010).
Q) “We have the capability to monitor the whole area from the Orange Stage, all the way down to the back stand, and all the way
to the shopping area. We have the four two mega pixel video cameras with ten times optical zoom and three times digital zoom,
so we can pretty much see everything. …The cameras are 100% digital so we can just tell them to stay on night vision, and they
shouldn’t be confused by the stage light.” (Field notes, Security Office Employee 1, Security Office, June 30, 2010).
Fast sensegiving
R) “We have spotters on stage, who are assistants to the security manager, but also to the CCTV-monitoring [in the sense that
they can direct the cameras to areas in the crowd]” (Talk, Safety Coordinator, Crowd Safety Seminar, June 30. 2010).
S) “Crowd safety supervisors have radio contact with the security manager and can guide the stewards in the pit-areas toward the
crowd where they are most needed. We also implemented mobile sensory teams, which can be deployed at any time in the pit
areas to help people if it is needed” (Talk, Safety Coordinator, Crowd Safety Seminar, June 30. 2010).
T) “Security Manager has a number of tools at his disposal for communication with the crowd: Screens, which can be shown to
the crowd, for example telling why the music has stopped” (Steen Bechman at Crowd Safety Course, part 1, June 28. 2008).
U) “… security manager, who has the mandate to stop the concert, to pause the concert, to tell the production manager, the tour
manager of the band, say: ‘We need the band to go out and try to calm things down now’, and that one person is key in our safety
work today also. He has a number of functions that he can draw upon, that he can use for the safety operation” (Talk, Safety
Coordinator, Crowd Safety Seminar, June 30. 2010).
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FIGURE 1
Timeline for the first 95 minutes after the Pearl Jam concert had been stopped
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FIGURE 2: Data Structure
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Photo 1: Empty Orange Stage Crowd Area before the Pearl Jam concert accident
Photo 2: Full Orange Stage Crowd Area before the Pearl Jam concert accident
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Photo 3: Empty Orange Stage Crowd Area after the Pearl Jam concert accident
Photo 4: Full Orange Stage Crowd Area after the Pearl Jam concert accident
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