Lucky Star Casino Tent Crashes; 6 Injured
This article was originally published in the Daily Oklahoman
The tent and stage erected for the Yes and Peter Frampton concert at Lucky Star Casino came down in an instant on Tuesday, July 6 said David Beerley, marketing and promotions manager for PM Productions, the company assembling the stage.
This tent and stage collapsed Tuesday during high winds at the Lucky Star Casino in Concho. Six were injured, including one crew member whose leg was broken. "There were probably 15 of us inside the tent and we noticed that the rain was getting heavier. Wind starting gusting a little bit, and you know, that's typical, but the poles weren't wavering or anything. They were holding, and then literally, in an instant, this downshear came and it went down to the ground,” Beerley said.
"Basically, it came in from all angles and then popped up again in the center and I think that massive force of wind just lifted the spikes, which are embedded in the concrete, probably three feet all the way around the tent,” Beerley said.
Andrew Wine, who has been assembling tents for 39 years, saw the conditions and was evacuating the tent Tuesday afternoon when it came crashing down. "I made the call, I started telling people to get out. "I noticed there was some people at the end of the north side of the tent that I guess they couldn't hear me or couldn't understand what I was talking about, so I ran toward them and this pole swung around. "Anyway, I shoved this one girl out of the way and then the pole hit me and broke my leg,” Wine said. "I just started working in Oklahoma like a year ago, and the weather is pretty wild. In Florida, where I'm from, we have really crazy weather there but we always have like two or three days notice. Over here, it's like two or three seconds notice,” Wine said. "We do these all the time, never have a problem. It's Oklahoma, we get a lot of wind, a lot of rain and we have no problems like this. It was just so random,” Beerley said.
The National Weather Service did not send a meteorologist to determine wind speed at the incident, but said several gusts over 50 mph were reported Tuesday.
Ticketholders for the Yes and Peter Frampton concert can get tickets when the show is rescheduled or be given a complete refund, event organizers said.