Statement from the Event Safety Alliance Regarding the Supernova Festival Massacre in Israel

The unthinkable has happened again.

Early Saturday morning at the Supernova music festival in Israel, Hamas militants fired rockets and gunfire at the unsuspecting crowd.  Gunmen chased guests into the desert to shoot from close range or kidnap them.  People ran if they could, or hid and played dead and hoped that wouldn’t become their reality.

As of this writing, the death count at the festival is more than 260 people, with many more injured.  

This is not an event story, any more than the two most deadly mass shootings in U.S. history, at Pulse nightclub and at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, were event stories.  Rather, the victims are collateral damage in someone else’s war, a battle far greater than any event.

The Event Safety Alliance is writing because we feel that as an organization committed to safety at live events everywhere, it’s important to say something. But honestly, what is there for an event professional to say that will shed any light in this horrific darkness?  We stand with, and grieve with, all innocent lives affected by this atrocity.  We wish we could do more, and yet we feel that the most we can do right now is to not act as if this is normal, or acceptable.  Beyond that, our sadness renders us speechless.  

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Event Safety Alliance
October 9, 2023