Some of the 55,000 fans at Saturday's Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at Knebworth

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Knebworth: Organisers say sorry for traffic chaos

By Chris Lennon, News editor Tuesday, June 26, 2012
6:05 PM

THE organisers of the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert have apologised to fans who faced hours of chaos as they left Knebworth Park on Saturday night.

Kilimanjaro CEO Stuart Galbraith outside Knebworth House

Long queues were reported as 55,000 people tried to leave the venue, after the Californian rock band’s set finished at 11pm.

Among the complaints were a lack of signs or stewards pointing fans – both in car and on foot – in the right direction and no lighting, meaning people had to try and find their way out of the Knebworth estate in pitch black.

Many were still stranded into the early hours and, with the last trains of the night having already departed Stevenage, the town’s Gordon Craig Theatre became an overnight shelter for those who could not get home.

Many fans took to Twitter on the night to tell the Welwyn Hatfield Times about the problems, and messageboards on www.whtimes24.co.uk were also flooded with complaints.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers performing at Knebworth

The concert was organised by Kilimanjaro, which has staged the three Sonisphere festivals at Knebworth – with no such problems reported on those occasions.

And today (Tuesday) Kilimanjaro CEO Stuart Galbraith spoke exclusively to the Welwyn Hatfield Times to say sorry to fans.

He said the concert was a “huge success”, and blamed the bad weather for playing its part in the problems over clearing the car parks.

Mr Galbraith said: “Weather conditions deteriorated significantly over the course of the day and this, plus other factors that ordinarily could have been overcome fairly easily made it difficult for our traffic management plan to run as we, Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Highways Agency had intended.

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to those affected.”

He continued: “As is being widely reported, the UK has experienced some extreme weather conditions over recent weeks and these have resulted in severe disruption at other major events including the Isle of Wight festival and Live From Jodrell Bank in Manchester, which was cancelled on Sunday.

“Despite these conditions we were delighted we were still able to deliver an outstanding event at Knebworth Park as promised.”

Mr Galbraith added they were “extremely happy” their traffic plans worked well for fans coming into the venue in the afternoon.

“We have already started working with Hertfordshire Constabulary and the Highways Agency towards improvements for exit plans for future events.

“Fundamentally we can assure anyone concerned that while the exit did take longer than we had hoped for, all customers were ultimately able to leave the site within a few hours.”

A police spokeswoman said the force’s “priority” was the safety of members of the public.

She told the Welwyn Hatfield Times: “With regards to traffic leaving the site we were continuously monitoring the issues and officers assisted stewards, who take the lead in directing people from the park.

“Some roads were closed in Stevenage to ensure pedestrians were safe and these were opened as quickly as possible. This didn’t impact on traffic leaving Knebworth Park.”

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7 comments

I must confess I didn't visit the concert, simply because it's not my thing. I do however sympathise with concert-goers, stewards & police alike. You do not organise a function such as this on paper & then leave everyone to their own devices without foresight & proper contingency plans. Plans so basic it doesn't even warrant 'thinking outside the box.' It's been known for enough of the year that the jet stream has negatively affected our weather, so that's a poor excuse. The smart money should have been on a possible if not probable deluge. As well-meaning as they might have been, normal tow trucks would be a waste of time, irrespective of size. They are not equipped for that environment. All that was needed was to hire in a couple of large, heavy duty farm tractors (not crawlers, they'd make things worse). As for the lighting all that was needed were mobile generators, the type the circus uses. Even better is that these are often based on ex-army, rough terrain vehicles. They didn't even need to run 247, just long enough to see the majority away from the venue. Leaving people to grope around in the pitch black in unfamiliar surroundings is disgraceful & downright dangerous. Taking up budgie boy's point of briefing stewards, what's so complicated about giving them a basic map & list of instructions to mull over well beforehand? I might sound a bit dated, but it takes more than a laptop & cellphone to organise these things properly - it takes a bit of old-fashioned savvy! However, was it lack of forethought or more about the purse strings?

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BuckStopsHere

Thursday, June 28, 2012
I completely agree with marie, the statements given by the CEO and the police are the usual diplomatic answers, and not acceptable. In reality the pathways were not lit well at all - I saw people stumbling in ditches, and wouldnt be suprises if there were sprained ankles. Many of the marshalls didnt seem to direct us properly at all. This has nothing to do with the weather! Badly organised for the exit process all in all.

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hitchinforever

Thursday, June 28, 2012
We came by coach from Bristol, several coaches were stuck in the soft ground & we finally got out at 4.20 am!! First they sent a pick up truck to tow us out - that didnt work (no surprise there then) the second vechicle, a bigger tow truck couldnt do it & the third huge tow truck....got stuck in the soft ground!! There was no plan for such circumstances - no information from the organisers of the event or coach company. Somebody did get some bottled water to us at about 3.45am. I guess we faired better than the event staff who were left standing out in the rain for two hours - until nearly 3.00am!! Other coaches were still stuck as we left. Apparently the coach company had asked the organisers the day before to park them up somewhere on higher ground for this very reason. All in all a shambles!

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fedup

Thursday, June 28, 2012
I completely agree with marie, the statements given by the CEO and the police are the usual diplomatic answers, and not acceptable. In reality the pathways were not lit well at all - I saw people stumbling in ditches, and wouldnt be suprises if there were sprained ankles. Many of the marshalls didnt seem to direct us properly at all. This has nothing to do with the weather! Badly organised for the exit process all in all.

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hitchinforever

Thursday, June 28, 2012
The weather had nothing to do with the situation people had to deal with when leaving Knebworth on foot, Street Lights and staff properly briefed would of got us all home safely and quickly, How was public safety priority!!

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marie

Wednesday, June 27, 2012
This traffic chaos was nothing new. It happened after the Genesis concert in 1992, and the post Robbie Williams event traffic in 2003 was even worse!

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RedAir1980

Wednesday, June 27, 2012
I was at the event and I must say even when I turned up and asked the marshalls some questions they were not able to answer them. Even though we left before the th encore and got out before the rus we did not know where we had to get out and had marshalls waving us n different directions. Just seemed as if the marshalls were not briefed correctly so I felt sorry for them.

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budgie boy

Tuesday, June 26, 2012