Stampede At The Stadium

A bad case of the “þetta reddast”

Fifteen people had to seek medical attention after a stampede that took place during an event held in Laugardalshöll stadium on Saturday, May 31. One was hospitalised. The event in question was the 14-year-anniversary (christened the confirmation of the century) of the popular radio show FM95BLÖ, hosted by three well-known Icelanders: Auðunn Blöndal, Steindi Jr. and Egill Einarsson. The event featured numerous musical and comedy acts and ran for eight hours.

What is FM95BLÖ?

FM95BLÖ is a weekly afternoon radio show that runs between 16:00 and 18:00 every Friday on the Reykjavík-based radio station FM957. The show has been on the air since 2011 and is hosted by the aforementioned Icelanders in their 40s, each of whom is a local celebrity in their own right. Auðunn Blöndal has been a household name in Iceland since 2001, appearing in so many TV programmes that he may be the hardest-working man in Icelandic show business this century. Steindi Jr. (Steinþór Steinþórsson) is an entertainer and actor who, like Auðunn, has appeared in numerous TV shows since 2009 and has released many popular songs to boot. Egill Einarsson, also known as Gilzinigger, is a fitness enthusiast and media personality who gained notoriety in the mid-noughties for his chauvinistic op-eds and a subsequent book of similar leanings, later transitioning, like his fellow hosts, into varied television ventures. Together, the trio represents some sort of a middle-Iceland cultural space. While foreigners will think of Icelanders as wool-sweater-wearing Sigur Rós and Björk fans who jailed the bankers and crowdsourced a new constitution while hugging puffins, the fact is, most of us are into fart jokes, warm lagers, binge drinking and FM95BLÖ.

What was the entertainment?

Well, it wasn’t Sigur Rós. There were some international acts, such as AXMO and the Australian DJ Timmy Trumpet, but the bulk of the entertainment, which lasted from 17:00 on Saturday to just after midnight on Sunday morning, were Icelandic pop artists and comedians. We could list them, but their names will mean little, if anything, to an international audience. Many of them, though, hold a lot of sway locally, but in a way that won’t translate.
“Foreigners will think of Icelanders as wool-sweater-wearing Sigur Rós and Björk fans who jailed the bankers and crowdsourced a new constitution while hugging puffins.”

How many people attended?

The number of people in attendance is disputed. According to reports, the organisers of the event had a permit for 8,500 people in the venue — Laugardalshöll sports hall — which technically can hold up to 11,000 people. According to the person in charge of security at the event, Jens Andri Fylkisson, around 10,000 people were at the venue. What the actual number of people was, remains to be determined.

What went wrong?

According to Jens Andri, at around 22:00 on the night of the event, a 15-minute-pause in the schedule was announced, which prompted the crowd of, according to Jens, “ten thousand people […] to leave at the same time. This didn’t work so people tried moving back. Then you had pressure in both directions and it took both us and the police a while to get people moving again.” The resulting stampede left at least 15 people injured.

Who’s to blame?

The blame has been placed squarely on the organisers, which incidentally, were not the radio show hosts personally, but an Icelandic entertainment company called Nordic Live Events, whose co-owner, Björgvin Þór Rúnarsson issued a statement the day after the event saying, amongst other things, that the organisers were very sorry about what happened. Veteran event planner and organiser of the Iceland Airwaves festival, Ísleifur Þórhallsson, harshly criticised the planners, saying in an interview on Bylgjan radio on June 2 that the organisers were “lucky nobody died.” He stated that almost everything that could have gone wrong had, and that the organisation of the event had been so inherently flawed, that what did happen, was to an extent, foreseeable.