Fans injured in accident at Italian festival
Venice event featuring My Chemical Romance and The Killers stopped
15.Jun.07 5:18pm

Several audience members have been hurt at the Heineken Jammin' Festival in Italy today (June 15) after a lighting and sound system collapsed.

According to early reports from the site, following strong winds and heavy rain, the ground under the delay towers on site, which support the lights and amps, became unsteady and fell down.

"I've never seen weather like it," one eyewitness told NME.COM. "My Chemical Romance were due to play but then the sky just went black. There were really strong winds and massive hailstones and everything just got blown away. The sound desk, tops of stages, everything. It was really shocking."

Ambulances have been called to the site, and it is believed at least nine people have been hurt and have been taken to hospital, suffering leg fractures and head injuries.

There are a number of "walking wounded" still on site, but no fatalities are reported.

Luigi Scarangella, lead singer of Italian band Le Mani, who were just leaving the stage when the weather struck recalled what happened.

"People were just running for cover," he said. "It looked like hell, but it's Mother Nature so what can you do?"

Damage caused by the weather has occurred throughout the site, and many bands are waiting to see if their equipment is salvageable. It is possible that damage caused could effect future dates by the bands involved.

The event, which was due to feature the likes of My Chemical Romance, The Killers, Linkin Park and headliners Pearl Jam, has been suspended for the day.

Tomorrow (June 16) at the festival has also been canceled, however organisers are not "writing off Sunday (17) yet".

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http://musicametal.blogosfere.it/2007/06/heineken-jammin-festival-quache-foto-qualche-conferma-dopo-il-disastro.html

From: Axis (AXISLIGHTS) 16 Jun 10:41
To: Craig Caserta (CRAIG7860) 3 of 12

Yep some scary crap peeps, i was at lighting foh when it all went down. It had just started raining so I went out to make sure the desks were well covered still from the night before. Suddenly it started raining so hard you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you and then wind and hailstones the size of walnuts started hitting you sideways. About 40 fans and security guards took shelter under the foh tower. Until the 3 spots fell over 3 levels above us and made us poo our pants. we scattered then realized all the delay towers were down into the crowd. It was over in about 15min then it cleared up a bit. All of our Pearl Jam gear, most of the Killers and Linkin Parks gear is still there as we were all kicked off the stage when they realized the damage to the roof. We all stayed the night in our busses onsite only to be told that the enitre site was a crime scene and nothing was coming down off the roof until it could be stablized. We sent the LD Kille and the entire audion and backline crew to the next festival and I and the rest of my lighting crew are on the buss to London for our Wembley show Mon. PRG is scramblig to get us enough gear to replicate our system and meet us there with more crew to rebuild the rig. I'll upload some pic when i can wireless on the bus allowing..

Axis deBruyn