As of a few hours ago, Rock am Ring 2017 has been evacuated. German police reported a serious threat to the festival, located at the Nürburgring race track. Authorities asked the thousands of attendees to leave the premises in an orderly fashion, and they did. Following the attacks in Manchester, it comes surprisingly to see the thousands so calmly taking an exit. Multiple twitter accounts have released a sprawl of pictures and videos of the evacuation.
https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/870742082431967232
Over 80,000 evacuated from German ‘Rock am Ring’ music festival https://t.co/RDMcfcRkS0 #festival #rockamring #RAR2017 #rar17 #terrorwarnung
— I am me (@Tightex) June 2, 2017
The three-day festival was to host mega acts such as Bastille, Claptone, Prophets of Rage, Sum 41 and System of a Down. Rock am Ring had been sponsored in part by T Mobile, Rockstar Energy, Beck’s and Engelbert Strauss. T Mobile was to direct and operate a 360 experience live stream over the weekend.
Wen wollt ihr bei #rar17 unbedingt hören? Bleibt dran & rockt ab morgen das ganze Festival mit uns! #MagentaMusik360 https://t.co/e6VQYXeVUu pic.twitter.com/gROGzHlAG0
— MagentaMusik 360 (@MagentaMusik360) June 1, 2017
According to festival organizer Marek Lieberberg “The public reacted fantastically”. To direct 80,000 fans is no easy feat, much less in a calm and unified fashion. The Rock am Ring website team was quick on updating regarding the incident. The site team informed everyone that detailed investigations will be released tomorrow at 11 A.M.. Although the unity and calm of festival attendees were very apparent, many were disappointed and worried.
Many glum faces at Rock am Ring. No Rammstein tonight. Festival is supposed to continue tomorrow @dw_сUlrike pic.twitter.com/yxX78U7iVR
— Rick Fulker (@rickfulker) June 2, 2017
In the process of evacuating 90,000 people from the Rock am Ring #Rar2017 field, everything is very calm pic.twitter.com/qEJJD7FIoV
— Rick Fulker (@rickfulker) June 2, 2017
As a result of the events today, this raises a massive series of questions about the process of festivals worldwide.
- What security measures will festivals adopt to ensure this doesn’t happen again?
- How will stricter security affect the experience at festivals?
- Will other European festivals postpone? Possibly cancel the events of Manchester and this?
- Seeing as how we are in the midst of festival season, how badly will this affect the psychology of attendees from now on?
Due to this being the second incident caused by terrorism, it will become apparent how the psychology of festival attendees will be affected. It appears as though those who attended this first day of RAR 2017 were in good spirits. When it comes to terrorism, consequently people live in fear. It seems like this is the main question arising on social media threads as of late. At the end of the day, we must all stand together and take an example from the participants of RAR.
