A destroyed tent at Pohoda festival in Trenčín, western Slovakia, on July 13, 2024. (source: TASR)
Pohoda, a popular music festival held at Trenčín airport since Thursday evening, prematurely ended on Friday night after strong winds and a severe storm caused one of the large tents to collapse on festivalgoers.
Nearly 30,000 people were at the festival when the storm struck the airport.
“Based on the available information, the inspection of all structures could not be completed sooner than within 24 hours, which makes it impossible to continue the festival programme,” the festival posted to social media.
“After carefully considering the time required to inspect the safety of festival structures, we have decided that we must end Pohoda 2024,” the organisers added.
The festival, which featured performances by British artists such as Arlo Parks, Skepta, and James Blake on Thursday, was originally scheduled to conclude on Saturday, July 13. Due to the weather, concerts by Morcheeba and Royal Blood, scheduled for Friday night, did not take place in the end.
Initially, organisers announced a suspension of the festival shortly after 20:00 on Friday due to approaching storms. The decision to end the festival came four hours later.
As many as 15 people, including two foreigners, were injured and treated after the Slovenská sporiteľňa tent collapsed, with 14 taken to hospitals in Trenčín and Považská Bystrica for minor head and arm injuries in most cases. Two young women sustained more serious injuries – fractures of the lumbar spine and pelvis, according to information provided by Slovakia’s emergency medical services on Saturday morning.
However, the festival’s chief physician Jaroslav Vidan spoke of 29 injured people on Saturday afternoon.
“Twenty-eight injuries were minor, mostly lacerations, and one injury was of moderate severity, involving a hip fracture,” he said, adding that all the injured people were transported to hospitals.
According to the Czech Press Agency, three Czechs were among the injured.
At the time of the tent's collapse, 20:27, it was estimated that dozens of people were inside the tent. Before the collapse, people waiting for the concert to begin were warned not to stand near the tent’s poles due to the incoming storms and were informed that the programme would be interrupted. Many, however, considered the tent a safe place and remained inside during the storm.
The strong winds also damaged the tent of the news website Aktuality, the tents of festivalgoers, some stages, food and drink stalls, portable toilets, fences, and caused a prolonged power outage in the festival area.
Many festivalgoers decided to leave the festival right after the storm, despite no official evacuation being declared, leading to traffic jams around the airport. Bus services between the airport and Trenčín train station were increased, and the city of Trenčín opened a sports hall for festivalgoers who had no place to sleep.
On Saturday morning, Slovenská sporiteľňa, one of the largest banks in Slovakia, paid for 10 evacuation buses that took festivalgoers to different Slovak cities, including Bratislava and Košice.
Meanwhile, some of the performers, including Fallgrapp, decided to forgo their performance pay to help the festival.
“Pohoda for me is an island of freedom, respect, and fun,” wrote comedian Fero Joke.
Last year, the festival incurred a loss of €900,000, writes the Sme daily. The premature ending of the festival may lead to the worsening of financial problems.
The police announced on Friday night that they have initiated a criminal investigation into the collapsed tent.
In 2009, a massive thunderstorm and gale-force winds also brought down a tent at Pohoda. Jakob Bossert, the head of the German firm Laudauer-Weihnachtscircus, which built the tent at the festival under a contract, was charged with public endangerment. The incident claimed the lives of two festivalgoers and injured dozens more. It took nearly a decade for a judge to determine who was to blame for the tragedy. The firm was ordered to pay €33,000 in damages to the Pohoda organisers. The prosecution of Bossert was suspended. In 2019, the court said that Bossert could not be brought to trial due to serious psychological and psychiatric conditions he had been suffering from since 2009.
As reported by the newspaper Sme in an article from July 15, 2024, the company ultimately did not pay €33,000 to the festival organisers, as its appeal was successful. The newspaper explains that a German court, not a Slovak one, was supposed to decide on the compensation.
According to the newspaper, the decision to suspend the prosecution of the German owner of the company was also annulled in 2023. The Regional Court in Trenčín ordered the District Court in Trenčín to decide the case again. It is currently unclear whether the district court will reopen the case or stop the prosecution of the German due to his alleged health issues.
Today, Pohoda cooperates with the Kayam company. The firm supplies tents for some of the biggest festivals in Europe, including Glastonbury and Roskilde.
As for the Slovenská sporiteľňa tent that collapsed on Friday night, the organisers said on Saturday that the owner of the Danish company responsible for constructing the tent was on his way to Trenčín.
“The tent that collapsed was designed for wind speeds of 35 metres per second,” said Pohoda director Michal Kaščák, without specifying the wind speed during the storm at the airport. “The control systems at the airport tower went offline during the storm.”
