Rolling Loud stage partially collapses day before music festival set to start
A day before thousands attend Rolling Loud in Miami Gardens, a video wall connected to one of its stages collapsed Thursday evening.
Around 5 p.m., part of a Rolling Loud stage toppled at the Hard Rock Stadium, at 347 Don Shula Drive.
Rolling Loud, an annual hip-hop festival, tweeted that a screen had fallen down at one of its stages. The music festival assured no one was injured and it would still open as planned.
During load and construction, the projection screen hadn’t been secured and fell as a result. The stage is being reset for the weekend.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said there are no active paramedics or firefighters at the stadium due to the collapse.
“The show goes on!” Rolling Loud said.
Rolling Loud Miami 2021 will be held from July 23 to July 25. Dozens of artists, including headliners A$AP Rocky, Travis Scott and Post Malone, are set to perform.
A WSVN 7 News helicopter captured footage of the incident, which they reported was a video wall that had fallen on the Audiomack Stage.
“They got it under control”
Outside Hard Rock Stadium Thursday night, which was largely obscured by tall fences draped in black mesh covers, workers in boom lifts could be seen surveying a set of large panels hanging above one stage along Northwest 27th Avenue. No damage was visible from the outside of the venue.
Emerging from the festival grounds around 8:15 p.m., 18-year-old Ben Perez, a Hialeah-bred artist who goes by Grime Green, said the event staff told him workers were fixing the issue and that the area would be safe by the start of the festival Friday.
“They got it under control. I know a lot of people are freaking out about it,” said Perez, who said he is working at the festival as a brand ambassador. “My friends even started texting me, ‘Are you OK, are you OK?’”
Perez said the incident happened at one of the smaller stages on the western side of the festival grounds.
He was joined by his friend Joslin Sylvestere, a 21-year-old artist whose stage name is NxppyHead.
Perez said they arrived at the venue around 6:30 p.m., after the collapse.
Sylvestere, who said he is from Miami Gardens, said the important thing is that no one got hurt.
“To be honest man, everybody’s got to keep God close and they’ll be straight bro. No cap,” said Sylvestere, who is also working as a brand ambassador.
For Sylvestere, this will be his first Rolling Loud festival. But Perez said he attended the last show in 2019 and it is smaller compared to what’s planned this year. He said fans shouldn’t be deterred by what they saw on the news.
“I’d tell them don’t worry, it’s definitely going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to come here. It’s going to be incredible,” he said.
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 5:44 PM.
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