In an unfortunate incident that the festival authorities should’ve predicted earlier, the final day of Germany’s popular rock festival Rock Am Ring was cancelled after a lightning strike caused injuries to at least 80 festival goers at the festival.
There were thunderstorms throughout the duration of the festival, with many performances getting cancelled at the eleventh hour. Most of the 92,000 attendees had to run for cover most of the time. The situation got so dire that local authorities revoked their licence to run the festival on Sunday.
History repeated itself, though. Last year, around 33 people suffered injuries during lightning strikes at Rock Am Ring, and 8 people have sustained severe injuries this year. The thunderstorm has engulfed some parts of Europe, with many areas being hit by lightning.
Inconvenience like this shouldn’t be caused to festival attendees, but in this case, they were told to vacate the premises by Sunday noon, which seemed like a superhuman task. It’s solely the fault of the organisers, and shouldn’t be repeated in the coming years.