A freak hailstorm descended upon the Canadian capital that left the Ottawa Bluesfest’s mainstage in tatters this evening. Midwest rockers Cheap Trick vacated the MBNA mainstage seconds before the stage gave way leading to an evacuation of the site. Festivalgoers flooded into the nearby Canadian War Museum as they waited for the storm to pass. The stages were shut down for the night with Death Cab For Cutie’s headlining set and Galactic’s performance among those which were canceled. Bluesfest organizers tweeted “official statement: there are no injuries on site,” though CTV is reporting that two people were rushed to the hospital, one with “life-threatening injuries.”
[via @FarOutRobot]
The Ottawa Citizen was on the scene to collect eyewitness accounts…
Concertgoer Tayleigh Armstrong witnessed the stage collapse.
“Cheap Trick was playing and they kind of just finished playing ‘I want you to want me’ and then … the storm came out of nowhere, like two minutes it started looking cloudy and then the stage just like crumbled and collapsed backwards,” she said.
Nothing strikes fear in the heart of outdoor concertgoers like the thought of fierce storms that come out of nowhere. We highly recommend taking a minute to think about your best way to safety when attending a large outdoor concert, because you never know when the weather will turn quickly as we’ve seen a number of times this summer.
Video from the scene is starting to surface…
