The last concert that I attended, sadly, was years ago in the city of Mumbai when Coldplay had come down to play for the Global Citizen Festival. 

I flew down from Delhi, because it’s not every day that you get to see Chris Martin perform alongside A R Rahman, Jay Z and well the king of Bollywood - Shah Rukh Khan. Safe to say, it was magical.

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And while most people who attend concerts do so with a similar hope of experiencing that kind of magic, there have been times when such events turned out to be tragedies instead of the joyful nights one had hoped them to be.

Here are the 5 most horrifying concerts where people ended up losing their lives:

1) Astroworld - Nov 5, 2021

As a crowd gathered for Travis Scott at the Astroworld concert in Houston, Texas with over 50,000 people attending, no one would have thought that a dream come true for these fans would soon turn into a nightmare.  

With thousands of fans pushing each other, a stampede developed when the crowd started pushing people towards the stage.  

As ‘people began to drown in other people’ several people started getting crushed as 8 ultimately lost their lives in this stampede while many others suffered serious injuries.  

2) Ariana Grande Concert - May 22, 2017 

A wave of terror went through people who attended this concert and those who saw the clips from it after Ariana Grande’s concert at Britain's Manchester Arena was attacked by a suicide bomber who ended up detonating his vest and killing 22 innocent people.

Since the pop star’s fan base is primarily of young girls and teenagers, many among the 22 killed with the suicide bombing were young children and women. 

It was a terrible incident, one that then turned into sheer panic followed by a stampede, resulting in many more severely injured. 

3) Love Parade - July 24, 2010

A popular and famous electronic dance music (EDM) festival that was being held in Duisburg, Germany in 2010 was supposed to host 200,000 people but on the day of the concert, was flooded with a whopping 1.4 million fans.  

It was during the concert when people were trying to pass through the underpass tunnel at the Love Parade that a stampede broke out, as people tripped off stairs, pushed each other and drowned in the crowd.  

500 people were injured while 21 lost their lives and all of the autopsies revealed that the common cause of death was crushed ribs and asphyxiation.  

Love Parade was permanently cancelled after this tragedy. 

4) Great White Concert - February 20, 2003 

A concert that was being held at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, United States, resulted in killing 100 people after the pyrotechnics were set off by the tour manager of the Great White band.  

The sparks ignited flammable acoustic foam in the walls and ceilings and within minutes people were looking at a full-blown fire with a room that was now covered with black smoke and hundreds of people trying to run to save their lives.  

230 people were injured and 100 killed in that fire, as the tour manager for Great White was sentenced to prison on account of involuntary manslaughter.  

5) Mawazine Festival - May 23, 2009 

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A nine-day festival that was taking place in Morocco and had several great artists like Stevie Wonder, Kylie Minogue, and Ennio Morricone playing, also ended in a tragedy as a stampede developed on the very last day of the concert.  

Turns out, several exits were closed and fans were also too eager as they climbed fences and pushed to make way, which ultimately resulted in 11 people dying. 

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