Boiler Room’s world tour stop in Seoul, South Korea, last weekend was abruptly cut short due to overcrowding and safety concerns.
The event, which took place at the city’s SFactory on Saturday, July 27, was shut down by police three hours earlier than planned, just before headliner and South Korean star Peggy Gou was set to take the stage. Other acts included Elkka, Jyoty, Soichi Terada, and more.
The Korea Times reports that roughly 4,500 tickets were sold for the show at the venue with a capacity of 2,000. There were no deaths or injuries, but five attendees reported difficulty breathing, according to the Korea Times, and emergency services subsequently dispatched 11 fire engines and 42 firefighters to the scene.
“It seemed to be going well, but then I noticed the sound stopped suddenly and I received a text from my liaison,” Terada, who was scheduled to close the event after Gou, told Resident Advisor. “I understand that, due to too many attendees who were eagerly looking forward to seeing Peggy Gou, nobody could move. So they had to abort the show before Peggy or I could play.”
On X, formerly Twitter, Terada also posted images of police cars outside of the venue, which has come under scrutiny online due to the incident’s similarity to a tragic crowd crush in Itaewon, Seoul, in 2022, which took the lives of 159 people.
In a statement posted to Instagram stories yesterday, Boiler Room disputed reports that the event was oversold, suggesting that the show was canceled for “crowd-flow issues.” All tickets have been refunded.
“Contrary to what has been reported, we sold to the capacity that was instructed by our partner in Seoul,” Boiler Room wrote. “At the time the event ended we were under capacity.”
“We take your safety extremely seriously with detailed measures in place at every event to ensure a situation like this doesn’t occur. We are reviewing our systems internally to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” the statement continued.
According to Mixmag, Gou is now working on a “larger event” to be held in Seoul in the coming months.
2024/7/27 Peggy Gou の登場を待ちわびる多くの観客がボイラールームの会場に殺到したため、誰も身動きが取れない程の混雑ルームになり、イベントは急遽中止になって残念です Due to too many audiences getting into Boiler Room Seoul, they had to abort the show before Peggy Gou playing nor me pic.twitter.com/Gs3W047wzr
— New Omodaka EP on 2024/6/7(Fri) / Soichi Terada (@fareastrecordin) July 28, 2024
Featured image courtesy: Soichi Terada.
