A council-led investigation into Detonate music festival at Nottingham Racecourse in 2016 which was shut down early over ‘health and safety’ concerns is reaching its final stages.
Detonate Festival, an underground music event, was halted three hours early on Saturday October 29 2016.
Staff and police closed off the main stage and moved out the crowd before many of the headline acts could appear after a fence near the main tent was breached, causing a surge.
The festival’s health and safety officer called for it to be stopped with police helping to clear the site when too many people tried to get into the main tent.
Nottingham City Council launched an investigation to find out what happened at the festival and have said it is coming to an end.
A spokesman for the council said: “Gathering evidence in investigations like this can take some time but we are in the final stages of our investigation and the event organisers are cooperating fully with it.”
One of Notts TV’s reporters was at the scene as it happened at the time and said: “Everyone was walking in the opposite direction as I walked towards the main stage.
“People were unsure what was going on but it was obviously a serious problem as all the music had just stopped.
“I spoke to one of the stewards who said that police were closing off the area but didn’t say why.
“A lot of people around us were either angry or confused as to what had happened and one or two were distressed.
“Then all the music stopped across all stages and it became clear the event was over.
“Everyone began flooding out the tents towards the exit at around 8.20pm – it didn’t become clear what had happened until much later.”
A petition was launched for revellers to get their money back following the early closure with more than 2,000 people signing it.
Detonate then refunded each ticket holder 50 per cent of their ticket price, ‘the maximum amount they can compensate without going bankrupt’.