Today, we have two stories of disasters at sporting events. First, we'll talk about the 1989 Crowd Crush at the Liverpool / Nottingham Forest FA Cup game at Hillsborough Stadium in the UK. Poor planning and new leadership ended in the deaths of 97 people. Then, we will go back to 1918 to the Happy Valley Racecourse Fire where over 600 people were killed when grandstands made of bamboo fell into food stands with open flames. Finally, we'll talk about how you can stay safe in a crowd, from knowing your exits at all times to making sure you have a few centimeters in front of your chest free for breathing.
Today, we have two stories of disasters at sporting events. First, we'll talk about the 1989 Crowd Crush at the Liverpool / Nottingham Forest FA Cup game at Hillsborough Stadium in the UK. Poor planning and new leadership ended in the deaths of 97 people.
Then, we will go back to 1918 to the Happy Valley Racecourse Fire where over 600 people were killed when grandstands made of bamboo fell into food stands with open flames.
Finally, we'll talk about how you can stay safe in a crowd, from knowing your exits at all times to making sure you have a few centimeters in front of your chest free for breathing.
HILLSBOROUGH
Hillsborough tragedy: a reconstruction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCFuQLUD-LQ
Hillsborough Disaster: How it Happened in 1989 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6kAtdwNJ5s
Hillsborough: anatomy of a disaster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYNeoTXe-SE
15 Darkest Moments in Sports History -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-fg7OADzsk
Taylor: Doomed to Fail brings you historical disasters and failures twice a week
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Back again. Hello, Taylor. How are you? Happy Sunday.
>> Taylor: Good, good. How are you?
>> Farz: I. You just. You ruined me because you shared the Sora app, and, man, it is just too much fun.
>> Taylor: I know. It's such a. Like, I know that I am upset about AI podcasts, but I know that I shouldn't do AI art, but I still do. And Sora is like, AI videos, and it's just incredible. And also, we're all gonna die.
>> Farz: I mean, I was. I was thinking about this. Like, we're not that far off from. They just make movies this way.
>> Taylor: Oh, 100%. Is your microphone plugged in? I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad at me.
>> Farz: No, it's not plugged in.
>> Taylor: Okay. Because you sound far away. We're gonna get there. Did you say. Wait, but did you see the movie Mountainhead? Because, like, that's about, like, billionaires and something, but they basically, like, the world is. Goes to. Because people can't tell the difference between news and, like, legit fake news anymore.
>> Farz: You know, I did see that movie, and, yeah, the. Feels like the uncanny value that we're heading for right now.
>> Taylor: Absolutely. And the. Yeah, you're right. Like, movies. I don't know.
>> Farz: Yeah. Where's it all gonna go?
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's gonna. And it's all happened so fast, which, like, I guess we knew it would, but, like, I mean. I mean, that's what you just, like, being Google into. This is crazy.
>> Farz: I said something about how, like, we're not gonna recognize the world that, like, Flo and Miles's kids grow up in. But then I was like, we're not gonna recognize the world. They grow like.
>> Taylor: Like, has a world in, like, a year.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. Like them at 30 years old. Like, I don't. They're probably gonna. Yeah, we're gonna be so different.
>> Taylor: I know. Even, like. Yeah. I mean, just. Who. Who. Who would have even known where we'd be right now? That's so stupid. But, like, when I was a kid, I didn't. Like, I couldn't have conceived the Internet, so what was I supposed to think? I was going to be, like, what? It's going to change so much in their lifetimes.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I don't know. I don't know. Wild.
>> Farz: Well, go ahead and introduce us.
>> Taylor: Yes. Cool. Hello. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you historical disasters and failures twice. No, not twice a week. Every other. Every week. Every week. I'm Taylor, joined by Fars.
>> Farz: If you saw the maneuvering I was doing on my laptop to be able to get to this, this mic and the dog is underneath here. In between, like seven different wires. Like, one leg is over one, one leg is under. It's. It's a whole mess.
>> Taylor: But do you remember, do you remember when I was so pregnant I took it upon myself to remove the drawer in my desk at work and it got stuck underneath it?
>> Farz: I don't remember that. But that does sound like I needed.
>> Taylor: You to help me get out because you were like working next to me and I was under the desk unscrewing those drawers so I could fit my belly under the desk. And then I got stuck down there and I had to like, pull on your leg and be like.
>> Farz: We had some memories.
>> Taylor: Ah, yeah, cool.
This is a suggestion from Justin, who also doesn't want a dog
Well, I. I will start us off.
>> Farz: Yeah, I'm ready. Kick us off.
>> Taylor: I. This is a suggestion from Justin, who also doesn't want a dog. That's how we know him. He responded to our we just don't want dogs plea or mine and said that he was. He was one of us. On my side, there's dozens of us. Anyway, thank you, Justin. He writes in often. I appreciate it. So I'm going to do a story that he suggested that's like, from the 1980s. And then I found another disaster that I'll tell you about from 1918. And then I'll tell you some safety tips on how to avoid such disasters.
>> Farz: I'm just going to note that, Justin, while I'm trying to get the 17 wires out from under my dog, I kind of agree with your sentiment right now. So it's okay.
>> Taylor: Thank you. That's fair.
David Wolverham talks about two major crowd disasters in the UK
So, okay, I'm gonna talk about crowd disasters and I have two. There's the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in the UK and then the Happy Valley Racecourse fire in Hong Kong in 1918.
>> Farz: Sweet.
>> Taylor: So picture it. It is April 15, 1989. It is the semifinals of the Football Association Challenge cup, which is the FA cup, which is an annual English, like, I think single elimination tournament. Liverpool is playing Nottingham Forest, which sounds fake, but it's real.
>> Farz: Sounds charming.
>> Taylor: I know. And they're at the Hillsborough Stadium in South Yorkshire. So it's, you know, a big game. People are excited. They expect 54,000 people to show up at the stadium. And the game starts at 3:00pm and the way that it works is like, I don't know, I feel like when I go to an American sporting event. There aren't like places for your team. You just kind of like hope there's people around you that like your team. Right?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Yeah. It kind of reminds me actually a little bit of like one of our very first episodes on the Nico Riots where the sporting teams actually were just like colors. It's like this is a blue section, like medieval times. Like the section for you, for your. For your color. But in this case, it's customary in these situations that they'll put fans of the same team together so that they'll be able to celebrate, have fun. Like you don't want to like, you know, go to a game and be next to like a Phillies fan is going to punch you in the face.
>> Farz: I mean, on the one hand it's probably a good thing that we mingle people. So we all have to learn how to be humans with each other in those settings. But on the other hand, I do think that soccer or football in the UK is like next level violence and aggression with the fandom there. So. Yeah, maybe they have to do it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, this is how. This is how they do it. And so there was a section for the Liverpool fans. So the seating also wasn't in these sections, was not assigned. It was just like they call it a pen. But it has like bleacher seating, standing room only areas. Like it's sort of like. I think it's actually mostly standing room only on like the bottom, the. The floor level. And people are supposed to kind of like figure themselves out in that area. Make sense?
>> Farz: Yeah, I get it.
>> Taylor: So we're getting ready for the game. People are excited. If you are in the Liverpool section, you have to go through a street into this kind of back entrance where there are seven turnstiles. So the turnstiles obviously are meant to count people and slow people down as they're coming in. And it is a bottleneck. Cause there's 10,000 people now trying to get into those seven turnstiles. And you can see videos of this. Cause it was in 1989. So they are trying to get in the crowd even before they go into the turn styles on the road, they. It looks like a wave. You know, they're like moving back and forth together. Cause they're so close to each other. And there's a couple people. You can see like there are police officers there and people are supposed to be doing crowd control. And like one of them. There's people on horses, but the horses, like you can't. The horses can barely move. You know, there's probably people underneath them. They're already so close together and they're not even through the turnstiles yet. There is a newish police officer, he's called a superintendent, Superintendent Roger Marshall. And you can see videos of him and he looks very worried. Like he. You can see like zoomed in on his face and he's wearing his, like, little cap, you know, and he's like, his eyes are wide open and he's like looking around because, like, he knows that, like, this is not good, like already and we're not even in the stadium yet, you know, so he definitely was out of his league. He didn't know what to do. He was relatively new. The chief superintendent, who's a police officer in charge, is named David Duckenfield and he is brand new. He just started a few weeks ago and he doesn't know how to control the crowd in this particular stadium. The person before him did know because stuff like this had happened before in this area. Specifically in 1981, there was another game and this one sounds unbelievably fake. It's the Tottenham Hotspurs and the Wolverhampton Wanderers.
>> Farz: You're just making stuff up.
>> Taylor: I mean, I might as well make.
>> Farz: That up because that's all Mad Libs.
>> Taylor: But there was a similar push in this exact same spot before the turn tide, the turnstiles. And this place is called Leppings Lane. That's like the name of the road that these 10,000 fans are going down toward the seven turnstiles. So with 1981, there had been like a crush there and 38 people were injured. So they were like, we knew, we knew what to do and they knew what happened. The reason that Duckenfield is there and literally brand new in the job is because the superintendent before him, his name was Brian Mole and he had just been fired or like moved for disciplinary. Disciplinary reasons because there was a hazing incident in the police department where they like stripped a guy naked and pretended that he was being robbed and it was bad. So.
>> Farz: So he did that.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So a lot of people. But to say, like. So Brian Mole did that, which is bad. Yes. But also Brian Mole knew what to do in the situation and David Duckenfield did not. He was like three weeks on the job. Makes sense.
>> Farz: I mean, yeah, I would probably train him then.
>> Taylor: Yeah, they didn't. They didn't do that.
Duck and Field didn't know how to fix bottleneck before game
He didn't know. He didn't know how to do it. He just, for whatever reason, he didn't know. So there was something that Mole would, you would do. So the way that it works is you go through the seven turnstiles and then there's a center tunnel. You go through the center tunnel and then you're out in that like standing room only area for the Liverpool fans. If you look at the videos of this disaster or for people who were there, there was space on the sides so they could have like moved the crowd not just into the center, they could have moved them to the sides and it would have been okay. But Duck and Field didn't know how to do this because what Mole would do is close that center tunnel so you couldn't go through there. Because if you get let through a door, you're going to go through the door that's closest to you to go to your seat. You know, like you're not going to go to the side, you're not going to go to the side. You're going to be like, oh, I want to be like right in the front, right in the center. This tunnel's leading you to the center. This is where I want to be. So they would close the tunnel, people would be forced to go around it and then it would like avoid any problems, right? Usually. But they didn't know to do this this time. So Duck and Field actually he's sitting in like a, like a little box in the stands that's like a command center. So he's sitting there and he's been there since 2pm and he just like stays in his box and is like kind of watching what is happening as it happens. So the game hasn't even started. It's right before 3 o' clock and all these Liverpool fans, they're going slowly through those turnstiles and they're still going through the center tunnel even though there's not enough room for them in there. They're still going because no one's told them not to. And they're just kind of like moving together as a crowd. At 2:40pm a young boy is lifted out of the crowd by police. Like someone hands a child to someone because like it's already getting like really, really crazy. At 2:52, Duckenfield says, okay, let's try to stop this bottleneck and let's open up the exit gate and let people in the exit gate so that instead of what I say, a little hand raise.
>> Farz: No, no, no. So, so the exit gate being. Let's let them in that way so that they're not going through the turnstiles anymore.
>> Taylor: Yes, because the turnstiles are taking too.
>> Farz: Long to the mains. Okay, I got it.
>> Taylor: Yeah. But when you open the exit gate, then you have like 3,000 people running in at the same time.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: You know, like, the turnstiles are annoying, but also like, part of their utility is to slow people down.
>> Farz: Sure.
>> Taylor: So that you don't just like, rush the gate. But Duck and Field said yes. And he. He's the one who. Who ordered the gate to be opened. So thousands more people try to get in. The game starts exactly at 3. Almost right away you could see that something was wrong on that side where those Liverpool fans were. So as the game is in its first minutes, people are being pushed and jumping over the fence onto the field. You can also see people in the back of the of like the pen that they're in reaching up and being pulled to the balconies by people at the top, people above them. Because you could see people are just being pushed and pushed and they're being pushed against the fence. That is like, on going like into the stadium. So they're either falling over it or they're being crushed like, within that. So by 3:06, the game's only been on for six minutes. The players are ordered to leave the field because they. Because they're like, we got to get people. We got to start helping people. People are trying to help each other. And at 3:15, nothing is like, they had called an ambulance. The ambulance hadn't even come yet. But by 3:15. So this has only been happening for like, you know, maybe 30 minutes. Duck and Field already starts the rumor that the Liverpool fans broke down the exit gate to get in when they did not.
>> Farz: Why would he.
>> Taylor: Because he's trying to cover his b***.
>> Farz: Oh, okay. I was like, isn't it bad if you try to seed misinformation and disorder in the situation?
>> Taylor: And so like, this whole. This whole thing is like Duck and Field is like, s***. And he's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I need to dive into that stereotype that we started with, which is like the drunken soccer hooligan. And say they were overly drunk and say that they pushed down this thing. This is before the ambulances even get there. He knows even like, how many people are injured because he knows he f***** up.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, so the first ambulance arrives by 3:16, but people are already dead in the end. There's over 400 injuries and 97 deaths.
>> Farz: That's crazy. What a horrible way to die.
>> Taylor: Horrible. It's asphyxiation and just like being crushed to death, like, that's that's, that's how, how they died. 90 were men, 7 were women, 38 of them were children. So under the age of 18, there were 40 people in their 20s, 12 in their 30s, and only 6 people who were older than that. So it was like a young group. This is some things from some stats that I got from Wikipedia. Two sisters, three pairs of brothers, a father and son. Two men were about to become fathers for the first time, which is super sad. The youngest person to die was 10. His name was John Paul Gilhooly and his cousin, STEVEN Gerard was 8 years old. He wasn't there, he wasn't at the game, but his cousin was there. And he would, come on, he would, in his future be Liver Liverpool's captain, which is pretty cool. He would, like, always, always think of his cousin and stuff. One person, he ended up dying by suicide in 2011 because he had given his ticket to his friend and his friend died and he just couldn't handle it anymore, you know. So, like, there's so much other, so many other injuries. You can see if you look at the aftermath photos that there's a lot of, like, things are crushed, like, the railing is crushed. There's, like, railings, like in between to kind of pen people off. Those are all crushed. And we have all those pictures that really make it that, like, show how, like, how violent it was. Because by 6pm they have a photographer in there trying to specifically take photos that would find a way to blame people for being drunk.
There were several hearings and inquests into Hillsborough tragedy
>> Farz: Yeah, they're trying to scapegoat the.
>> Taylor: Trying to scapegoat, trying to get out of it. So that's what he says. He says, Dug and Field says these people were drunk. They're hooligans. They pushed over the gate. They didn't have tickets. There's also, like, news coverage of people holding their tickets and being like, we had tickets, you know, like, it wasn't people just like, breaking into this. The next day, Margaret Thatcher came to, you know, pay her respects and she also blamed the crowd because that's what she had been told, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So there was. There were several hearings and inquests. This is actually the longest inquest in British history because there are so many different, different pieces of it. But Almost immediately in 1980, in 1989, Lord Justice Taylor, who it was, you know, as a judge, did the Taylor Taylor inquiry, and he found that the turnstiles were the problem. The police should have had anticipated this. And then the pen where the people were in the section, they were in had a 2, 200 person limit, but really it should have been 1600. Like the limit was even like way too high and there were 3,000 people in it.
>> Farz: D***.
>> Taylor: So it was just like way over the crowded. He also said that people were, quote, not drunk, nor even the worse for drink. So there was no evidence of that either.
>> Farz: I mean, they just gotten there.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Most you do is a couple of beers before you head out with your buddies, I would imagine.
>> Taylor: Exactly. So they stopped selling beer in like the seventh inning, Yankee Stadium.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: The poor people, you know. So all in all, he, he Taylor concluded that, you know, the police were defensive and evasive and, like, didn't want to blame themselves. And it was definitely, definitely fault, their fault. And families continued to sue and like, ask for justice, ask for apology. Several prime ministers apologized, like publicly for what had happened. Finally, in, in 2014, like the whole thing kind of came to a close. And Duckenfield did admit that he froze, he panicked and he should have closed the tunnel and he didn't know and he didn't do it. So it was his fault.
>> Farz: Yeah, I mean, I would say. I would also. I don't know like when. So whenever I see a metro or I'm about to get on a Metro at like the airport, that's the most likely place I'm going to get on one. Terminals, you never go to the place where you were dumped by the escalator. You go further from that because that's where the crush of people is going to be.
>> Taylor: 100%. Yeah. You want to be on like the end. You don't want to be like exactly where you, where you walk in.
>> Farz: Right, right. I'm not gonna victim blame, but also just don't just move. Just move.
>> Taylor: Well, it's almost impossible to move when there's 3,000 people pushing.
>> Farz: No, I'm saying, I'm saying like, go the other. If there's people in front of you, just go. You said yourself, like, out of the tunnel, you exit, the sides are all.
>> Taylor: Wide open, so the crowd's already going to the middle. I think it'd be really hard to move.
>> Farz: Yeah. If you're, if you are already there, then you're screwed. But if you're not, just if you know, person.
>> Taylor: You know that from before. Right, Right, Yeah, yeah. So it did change some of the requirements for stadiums in, in the UK, obviously, and make things safer. Just this September, September 2025, the Prime Minister of the UK here, Starmer, he said he put forward a law called the Hillsborough Law, which is a public Authority Accountability Bill, which is a law that will make it, like, easier for police officers to tell the truth, basically. Like, people in those. In those roles would be like, listen, if you tell me that your boss up, you're not gonna get fired, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah. I'm surprised they don't have that already.
>> Taylor: Yeah, well, it's in there now and they're working on it. So.
Part of why I don't like going to concerts is because of crowds
>> Farz: Have you ever been in a crowd like that you're experienced that.
>> Taylor: I've been in crowded places. I've been in, like, concerts where it like, turns into a mosh pit.
>> Farz: Yeah, I was thinking that too. I've. I think a part of why I don't like going to concerts, at least not concerts where there's like, not assigned seating, is because of experiences like that when I was younger, you know, where you show up and you can just be in a crowd and then all of a sudden everybody's, you know what? I take what I said back because I've done the exact same thing where I just try and weasel my way through the crowd to get towards the front center.
>> Taylor: Of course, so totally done that.
>> Farz: And then. And then you're there and then you realize, like, oh, this is getting kind of ugly. And then you keep trying to find your way out and then, yeah, you're in like. You're the mercy of the crowd.
>> Taylor: You're the mercy of the crowd. It's. It's literally like you're in a riptide, you know, you have to go with it. There's also, like, I've been at concerts where I've been in the front because my sister, like, really want, like, she's really good at, like, running to the front and like, be getting their hours early and come home and there's bruises on my legs from the fence, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Because I am being pushed against it. So I haven't been anything where I thought I was like, going to die. But also I'm short too, so, like, it's hard for me to find a good place in a skating room only area anyway because I can't see s***. So I have to, like, sometimes I'll just like, be in the back where I can like, kind of be up a little bit and then I can see better because otherwise I can't see. And like, we were talking about this, like, I don't want to buy tickets in the orchestra level because I can't see anything.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's the only benefit I've had is being like, bigger and taller because I can kind of see what's happening in front of me and gauge the feasibility of something.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. I feel like I could get lost a lot easier.
>> Farz: I just disappear, you know, see Dan Carlin. We'll make sure we. We have like a flag attached to you so I can. That, like, goes above you and that'll.
>> Taylor: Be in the standing room only section. So that's one absolutely awful and definitely the fault of. Of the police and the event planners.
The Happy Valley Race Course fire in Hong Kong in 1918 killed 687
Another one, another crowd. It's not. It's not a crowd crush, but it's like a crowd tragedy that came up in my research that I had not heard of that has a much, much, much large, larger death toll is the Happy Valley Race Course fire in Hong Kong in 1918. This is the deadliest fire in Hong Kong history because you'll see a lot of people died. It was February 26, 1918, and this is a horse race and they expected a lot of people. And so they built temporary grandstands out of bamboo, which is like a strong building material, but they were built not very well, and they were built really quickly. So it's like 90 meters of grandstand. So like half of a football field. Right. Of. Of grandstand. And after the first race goes fine. After which actually, now that I say that out loud, I feel like having a horse race next, something poorly constructed is probably also part of the problem.
>> Farz: Yeah, of course.
>> Taylor: You know, like, you know in Harry Potter, when they, like, go to the Quidditch matches and they're emotionally tall risers. Absolutely not. You never do that.
>> Farz: It reminds me of those houses in la, like in Glasswell park area where they're on stilts. You're like, f***, no.
>> Taylor: Absolutely not. No.
>> Farz: That house we used to live in, remember how it was really scary walking? You knew there was nothing underneath you for like 90ft.
>> Taylor: I hate that. Yeah, no, that makes me really nervous. Yeah. So that probably, now that I think about it, probably part to do the two, because the ground shook, obviously because of all the horses. But right before 3 o', clock, right before 3pm, one section of the grandstand collapses, and then the whole thing collapses, they said, like a pack of cards. Just like a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The whole thing falls. There were 3,000 people that were on these grandstands, and besides the fact they just fell, they also fell onto food carts that had open flames and the bamboo immediately caught on fire. So this one is less a crowd crush and more the fire. People were asphyxiated because they were underneath piles and piles of people and debris and all of the things. And then the fire started. And at first it was like a small fire, but no one had any water. And then even, of course, the fire hydrants weren't working. So the actual fire hydrant at the race course should have been working, but that they could only get like 10ft of spray out of it. It wasn't like a full. At full power. So they had to bucket brigade, brigade from a golf course next door to try to like, get it out within five minutes. They couldn't even rescue anybody because it was so hot. And in 20 minutes, the whole thing was just burnt to ash, people. Bamboo.
>> Farz: Bamboo goes up pretty quick.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it went up real fast. The death toll is around 687, mostly women and children.
>> Farz: That's less than I would have assumed when you said 3,000 people were on there.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's true, that's true. A lot of people were, you know, severely, severely injured. A lot of the bodies were never identified because they were just unrecognizable because of the heat of the fire. They. People were trying to help each other, like in the field, like with burns and broken limbs and such. They were trying to bring people to the hospitals, but even the hospitals were getting overwhelmed because it was also a measles outbreak and a, like a whatever at a fever outbreak as well. So they didn't have enough space for all the people. So just like tragedy upon tragedy, in the end, they had 614 of the bodies were buried in a mass grave in like, individual coffins behind the racetrack. And now it is a memorial space, obviously. And there's also a lot of new laws, like, almost immediately, like, grandstands have to be built better, there has to be better water. You have to look at the crowd sizes, all of those things. And it was also found to be the organizer's fault because they shouldn't have done that.
>> Farz: They go to jail.
>> Taylor: I'm not sure. It was a long time ago. I feel like. No, because I feel like there's a little bit of, like, British stuff happening and they could just like, wipe under the rug.
>> Farz: Interesting.
>> Taylor: You know what I mean? So that was that one. That's a short story. But I thought that was interesting because it was so much more than the Hillsborough one. I had not heard of it. Like, I didn't know that happened.
>> Farz: There's one story I heard. It's. It's true. It happened here in the US and it was like some, like, minor league baseball game was going on and all the tickets in this small town were Sold out. And there was, like, a industrial factory, like, adjacent to the. To the baseball field. And a bunch of people decided because they didn't have tickets, they were gonna go on top of the roof of this industrial building. And the roof obviously wasn't meant to support the weight of a ton of people up there.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: And a bunch of them fell into it. And what was inside that. That they fell into was a iron melting. Yeah, it was. It sounded really grotesque. It sounded like when they finally were able to, like, cool it down enough to open it, I mean, it was just like. It was just. They turned into lava, basically.
>> Taylor: Yeah. That's terrible. Oh, terrible, but terrible way to go. It's so scary.
>> Farz: It's got to be quick, though, right?
>> Taylor: I don't know. I feel like there's a minute that, you know, and you, like, watch your foot catch on. You're consumed.
If you are planning an event, follow the rules and don't be dumb
Your last. You know, hopefully you don't remember your last minute.
>> Farz: The first, like, seven seconds have to be horrible.
>> Taylor: Oh, God. It's like the falling. I hate that. So, okay, what do you do? How do you survive these things? I have some tips. If you are planning an event, follow the rules and don't be dumb. Look at capacity limits and make sure that you know what they are for. Like the stadium or, like, the area that you are doing your thing. Typically, it should be 2 people per square meter. Meter. If it's 6 people per square meter, that's when people die. So, like, you should plan for two and try not to have it any. Any more than three. And you should have an idea of what that looks like. And there's, like, places online you'll find that looks like. You also should know your crowd flow and know the things that you should have people do. And you should try to segment folks as well. So if they're, like, actually are in pens, and, like, that pen can just, like, work with itself, so it's not the full weight of the crowd. Communication and early warning is important. Make sure that your team is trained and that they have the medical staff available. And then also, I think this one is super important for, like, performers and event hosts is like, stop the show if something's happening. You know, I feel like people are nervous to do that, but, like, just stop and have, like, the performer talk to the crowd or be, like, everyone out, you know, or, like, whatever. Because there is research that, like, if once people are aware of it, then it gets better because they know everybody knows. But it's the panic that, like, makes it worse. So you need to Have. You need to be able to say, like, we're stopping this. Like, we need to stop right now. You know?
>> Farz: You know, with this all reminded me of is that I know P did. He's been in the news a lot, obviously. But what he's been accused, what he's in jail for isn't actually even the. One of the worst things he's ever done in his life. What I would presume is one of the worst things he's done in his life is he was. He organized an event in 1990 in New York and a stampede occurred. He, like, he organized it terribly, had no security in place, and nine people died.
>> Taylor: Oh, God. That's terrible.
>> Farz: Yeah, because I was thinking. I was. I was like, I think this happened. I remember he did something related to, like, killing a bunch of people. It was this.
>> Taylor: Oh, God.
>> Farz: Anyways.
>> Taylor: But if you are in a crowd for any reason, first and foremost, always know your exit. Like, that's important. If there is a fire, if there is a shooter. If you're in America, you know, like, know how to get out immediately. Know where your closest exit is. Be aware of how many people that are around. Like, and just be like, if you feel uncomfortable, leave. Like, you have to. Like, don't be like, if you feel like things are, like, exceptionally bad and you get, like, a little bit worried, like, maybe like, the walls are moving in a weird way, or like, you can feel yourself being pushed by the crowd in certain ways and you no longer feel comfortable, try to leave. And leaving early is better than not. You know, you can alleviate some of the crush. If you can't move your arms, you are in trouble. So, like, if you are in a place and you are pinned between people and you cannot lift your arms, like, to your face or in front of your chest, that's when you know things are, like, getting really, really bad. And you need to try to alert the people around you that something is happening so that they're able to, like, alert other people and the whole crowd. If that works, they can calm down together. And that actually has worked.
>> Farz: But, like, has that really worked?
>> Taylor: It has, like, that, like, there's a little. There's like. It said that there's, like, altruism in stadiums, like, in these crushes where you're like, okay, and everybody's, like, trying to figure it out together because you really are swaying together. But if you can't get. If you can't leave, you need to, most importantly, stay standing. If you fall, you're f*****. Like, people will step on top of you, you will be succeeded. You will be crushed. You will die. If you drop something, don't get it. If someone falls, try to help them, but, like, don't get pulled down with them. As soon as one person falls, then more people fall, too, and it's a pile of people, and it just gets worse. So you should stand with your feet as, like, shoulder width if you can, and then also hold your arms up if you can. Like, wiggle them up to you like a boxer in front of you. Even if you have, like, a tiny, like, a couple centimeters of space, that will give you enough space to breathe. So, like, try to hold your arms in front of you so that your lungs can move, basically. And try to stay standing.
>> Farz: Man, what a scary concept. The way, you know, picture you're painting is kind of terrifying.
>> Taylor: You're being crushed, like, you're gonna die. So try to do that. Try not to scream, because that uses oxygen as well. So, like, conserve your breath. Try to protect your lungs. Try to stay standing. I'm gonna move with the crowd like a riptide. So don't go against the crowd, you know, Move with the crowd. So, like, there might be times when, like, your feet don't touch the ground, you know, because you're being, like, pushed around. But the most important thing is that you're able to breathe. And then.
Be mindful of where you're going, because the experience that I'm telling
Which. This kind of sounds weird, but it actually makes sense, is try to avoid, obviously, like, walls and barriers, but sometimes it's safer in the middle of the crowd. So if you find yourself being, like, pushed toward a wall or toward, like, an immovable fence, if you can move yourself, I mean, somehow back into the middle, you have a better chance of surviving because, like, most of the people who died in Hillsborough were crushed against the fence.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, so. Yeah, try to breathe. Try to move with the crowd until, like, it dispenses. And try not to get crushed against the floor or a wall, because that will. That'll kill you.
>> Farz: Also, be mindful of, like, where you're going, because the experience that I'm telling you about, where I felt like I was in, you know, kind of like realizing, oh, things are getting a little dicey. There were never. They were never like, a Taylor Swift concert. Not that I've ever been, but, like, they're never anything that's, like, very well orchestrated and planned. It's always like, some dumpy bar decides you're gonna have a show that night, and they've never done shows. And then you show up, and the security guards are a bunch of 18 year olds. Like, that's kind of.
>> Taylor: No, that's a really good point. Like, you hope that in these like huge stadium situations, like tennis left him. Like, there's so much security and so much stuff that goes into the planning of that. But yeah, if you're at like a place that's like shady or small or shady. Yeah. Like, you know, you're at like a basement of a bar watching a band play, you know, just be careful.
>> Farz: And me and Taylor are gonna have to be careful ourselves when we go see Dan Carlin in February.
>> Taylor: We're not seeing Dan Carlin. We're seeing Las Pacas on the left.
>> Farz: I was, I was reading the. The mess. The screenshot you sent me that referenced Dan Carlin. Sorry. And last podcast on the left.
>> Taylor: So, yes, we will be careful. We will be careful not to get question. Oh, I mean, obviously, like, as I'm older, I'm like, not doing that. You know, like, when you're younger, I feel like you're more excited about going into the middle of a. Of a crowd, like, you know, or you want to be in the front or whatever. And I'm like, no, thank you. I'd like to be by the bathroom and be able to leave immediately.
>> Farz: You know, like, where's. Where can I get water and convenient access to a toilet.
>> Taylor: Exactly. Exactly. I'm like, I'm not gonna be in the front and have to pee. That's crazy.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting story. Thank you for sharing.
>> Taylor: Thank you.
Taylor: I pronounce the name of the record company in Millie Vanilla wrong
>> Farz: Do we have any listener mail today?
>> Taylor: I do. I have a text from Morgan. I pronounce the name of the record company in Millie Vanilla just like, absolutely wrong. I don't even know if I can do it again. It's Arista Records. Is that right? I think it's Arista. I said Arista. I don't know both of them the same now. And I was like when I read it. Arista. I think it's Arista. Anyway, that was the record company in the United States. And then also I sent you this. But Morgan was watching Jeopardy. In the two thousand dollar question was she is the songwriter behind such hits as if I Could Turn Back Time and How Do I Live? And we know the answer is who is Diane Warren, who wrote Blame it.
>> Farz: On the Rain and Fab Morven, as of today is getting a Grammy nomination. It says 35 years after their Milli Vanilli Grammy Award was revoked.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's her audiobook.
>> Farz: Yep. For the one you referenced, which is.
>> Taylor: How people like Barack Obama can have a Grammy.
>> Farz: You know, does Barack Obama really have a Grammy?
>> Taylor: Yeah, because it's for audiobook.
>> Farz: Oh, interesting. Okay.
>> Taylor: I don't know that.
>> Farz: There was something else.
>> Taylor: Oh, yeah, Grammys.
>> Farz: I went. I went thrifting last weekend and I found the record section, and I did see a bunch of Arista produced already. Yeah, I know, I know. As I started saying, I was like, I think I'm going to butcher this again. But I went through every school where they had to see if they have Milli Vanilli for you.
>> Taylor: Oh, thank you.
>> Farz: They did not, unfortunately.
>> Taylor: They're all burned.
>> Farz: They're all burned.
>> Taylor: Deception. Yeah, that's it.
>> Farz: Sweet.
>> Taylor: Thanks, everyone. Be careful out there.
>> Farz: Be careful out there. Taylor, thank you for sharing. We'll go ahead and cut it off there and.