A court in Spain recently sentenced the promoter, Miguel Ángel Flores, to four years in prison for his involvement that lead to the deaths of five people at his 2012 Steve Aoki event in Madrid. The victims were all young women between the ages of 17 and 20 who were killed by a stampede inside the Madrid Arena caused by overcrowding. The event was intentionally oversold by almost 6,000 tickets, which caused major safety and security issues for the event space and crowd that size. Many fire exits were closed the night of the show, and one attendee said “”there was a human bottleneck at the only exit, because all the others were closed, sealed.” It’s presumed that the stampede was triggered due to a flare lit inside the venue, which caused the crowd to panic.
Miguel Ángel Flores was convicted of five counts of homicide and twenty-nine counts of causing harm due to negligence. Fourteen other defendants received sentences that ranged from thirty to thirty-six months. Families of the victims are set to receive $391,966 as a result of the court’s ruling. Even though Flores is now barred from continuing to organize and/or host events due to his recent conviction, he plans to reopen his Madrid club, Macumba, this Friday.
