‘Organisers shouldn’t have announced RCB victory parade on social media’

Bengaluru-based event management agencies blamed the paucity of time for planning and sudden changes to the programme, among other logistical shortcomings for the tragic stampede at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium that claimed the lives of 11 individuals on Wednesday. 

A spontaneous event of this size has not been held successfully in Bengaluru in recent history, pointed out Oum Pradutt, founder of Phase 1 Events and Entertainment.

“Such an event needs one person at the helm, overlooking every detail. Here, with many stakeholders involved, and given the urgency of the event, there wouldn’t have been enough time to discuss minute details. The planning was guided by several assumptions, and that amounts to negligence,” he said. 

For a public event on the streets, one lane has to be dedicated exclusively for emergency vehicles.

“This lane must be barricaded from the start. To prevent people from jumping barricades, mojo barriers can be used, and a police officer must man each barricade,” Pradutt added. 

Industry experts also called out RCB’s management for prematurely putting up posts on social media about the victory parade. On X, @RCBTweets announced around 7am on Wednesday that the parade would be held around 3.30 pm. In fact, information about RCB’s pending arrival, and the subsequent celebrations were shared on many social media handles. 

“You don’t make this information public unless you have everything in place, and have obtained permission from the police. Then the organisers changed the event timings multiple times. This only added to the confusion. Plus, when VIPs are involved, the time of their arrival must be kept a secret. This is a protocol everyone follows,” opined Shashank Joseph Abraham, who handles event operations at The Silly Fellows.

Nimesh Chhag, an event planner, believes spreading the celebratory event over two days would’ve helped. Pointing out that celebrities such as Diljit Dosanjh performed back-to-back shows precisely to avoid the confusion of uncontrollable crowds, Nimesh said,  “We currently don’t have the infrastructure to hold such a large crowd,” he says.

A senior police officer confirmed to DH that the organisers informed the public about the victory parade on social media without obtaining police permission. “That was why another announcement about the cancellation of the parade had to be made,” said the officer. 

DNA Networks, the agency behind the RCB event, did not respond to DH’s calls.