Backstreet Boys incident - Oklahoma

[Jay Ashworth]

It's not clear what happened from news reports; one has this as "concert structure collapsed" one has it as "concrete structure outside concert" and one says it's a
"tent collapse".

Pretty clearly, something bad happened, but it's not clear if it would be the tour's fault:

https://www.google.com/search?q=backstreet+collapse

 

[FMEng]

It sounds as though the venue took the proper action, but not everyone did as instructed. From Entertainment Tonight:

“At 5:00 p.m., WinStar World Casino and Resort officials began evacuation of the outdoor concert venue after observing that lightning was within four miles of the casino,” Kym Koch Thompson, spokeswoman for the resort, said in a statement. “All patrons in the area were asked to move and to seek shelter from the storm. However, about 150 patrons who were standing in line for the Backstreet Boys concert did not heed staff’s warnings.

“At approximately 5:30 p.m., the storm hit and knocked over the concert entrance trusses with 70-80 mile an hour winds and heavy rain. 14 people were treated at the scene and then transported to local hospitals."

This is why it's important to have a qualified person watching the weather at outdoor venues. At the very least, take steps to receive warnings from the NWS and heed them. Unfortunately, in this instance, the NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Love County at 5:38 pm. However, warnings had gone up for adjacent counties earlier that afternoon. There may have been watches issued earlier, but I haven't found an archive for those.

Stuff like this happens every outdoor concert season. I'm surprised insurance companies don't require large, outdoor venues to hire private meteorologists.