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Promoter of Steve Aoki show where five people died jailed for four years

By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 29 September 2016

The promoter of a Steve Aoki-headlined show in Madrid in 2012 during which five people were killed as a result of a crowd surge has been sentenced to four years in jail.

As previously reported, a Halloween concert dubbed Thriller Music Park ended in tragedy after a stampede occurred, seemingly as panicked audience members sought to exit the venue. It was thought a pyrotechnic ultimately caused the panic, though investigators said that a stream of new audience members entering the venue through an opened exit door may also have contributed to so many concert-goers seeking to exit at the same time.

Certainly the real problem was the number of people in the 10,600 capacity Madrid Arena that hosted the event. Although promoters initially insisted they hadn’t sold out the show, meaning the concert was under capacity, according to investigators over 16,500 tickets had in fact been sold. The fact that many of the exits from the main space at the arena were blocked also led to the surge of people through the main entrance that resulted in the fatalities.

According to El Mundo, Miguel Ángel Flores, as the lead promoter, was convicted of five counts of negligent homicide and 29 counts of causing harm through serious negligence, and was given the maximum sentence allowed, four years.

Seven other people involved in the event also face jail time. Though Flores reportedly plans to appeal, and to re-open his Madrid nightclub Macumba – which closed after the Thriller Music Park incident – despite a condition of his conviction being that he must stop promoting events.