A ninth man died in a hospital five days later. Eight young men, ages seventeen to twenty-six, suffocated to death in the mosh pit as Pearl Jam performed. Within an hour, the area directly in front of Johansen had turned into a rock & roll hell. “We’d had that crowd before,” he notes, “and there was no problem.” But not dangerous.” Johansen, 37, had done security at Roskilde for the past ten years. The size of the audience, Johansen says now, was “nothing special. A volunteer security guard at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, Johansen took up his assigned position in the narrow pit between the crowd barrier and the Orange Stage, the largest of the festival’s seven performance areas, and looked out at the approximately 50,000 fans waiting to see Pearl Jam. If you are thinking about joining a mosh pit observe it beforehand ad it may be more harmful then expected and expect the likelihood of a minor injury and damaged clothing.įor a safer alternative you can mosh with a group of friends.On Friday, June 30th, at 10:15 P.M., Per Johansen reported for duty. Our advice to you is to think responsibly and stay safe. Headbanging can cause alarming injerys such as short and long term neck pain and even mild trumatic brain injury. Mosh pits can get violent with injury’s stemming from knocks to the head, broken bones, concussion and whiplash.

Moshing and head banging are also popular activities at concerts, rock concerts in particular. The conclusion to this survey deemed crowd surfing “relatively safe” however an adequate amount of medical aid needs to be provided nearby. Separate to injury’s, risks of crowd surfing include having their belonging stolen, shoes lost and cloths ripped. Some people think that they’re only putting themselves in danger, but as the statistics show 60% of the injuries were sustained by those in the crowd rather then the surfer themselves (40%). In the space of a three-day music festival with over 60,000 per day a total of 1511 patients were seen thought the festival, with 43 reported relating to crowd surfing. Stage diving: Trusting the crowd implicitly, you climb onto the stage without security staff noticing, then launch yourself on top of the crowdĪccording to the “Crowd Surfing – Who is at Risk” survey Moshing: Involves shoving and pushing people in the pit (at the front of the crowd). Activities in festivals such as ‘crowd surfing’, ‘head banging’ and ‘mosh pits’ have become increasingly popular thoughout the years, many people participate without realize the injury’s that could occur.Ĭrowd surfing: Involves launching oneself over the heads of the crowd in front, and ‘surfing’ on supporting hands towards the stage.

Mosh pit injuries