According to the Ottawa Business Journal, the main stage collapsed at Bluesfest in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Sunday night around 7:20 p.m., moments after CHEAP TRICK members left the stage due to an intense storm.

CHEAP TRICK was about 20 minutes into its performance, but was able to get off the stage safely. The band posted a message on its Facebook profile later in the evening, “We are SOOOO lucky! Everyone is shaken up but band and crew are all fine. CHEAP TRICK hopes that everyone
who attended the show is also OK.” CHEAP TRICK singer Robin Zander later added, “Fortunately the band and crew are all lucky to be alive and we’ll see you down the road. And all the best to our truck driver Sandy.”

Globe And Mail editor Ryan MacDonald, who was at the concert, wrote, “Suddenly the wind whipped up from the west and the storm rolled in. It was a scary moment. People started screaming and crying. The stage was a rectangle and it had scaffolding, three, four storeys high. The wind
caught it and blew it backwards. It collapsed like a big tent. It was kind of unreal.”

Video footage of the collapse can be seen below. Photos are available at this location.

“Fire crews and police are checking  beneath stage and so far no one found. Appears everyone made it out safely,” the  Ottawa fire service wrote on Twitter just before 8 p.m.

Twenty  minutes later, the service wrote a second search underneath the canopy confirmed  nobody was trapped.

On Twitter, Bluesfest officials said no  serious injuries occurred as a result of the collapse, and that remaining  programming for the festival is canceled.

STAGE COLLAPSE VIDEO

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Heavy metal (fiend/friend?) Writer, frustrat(or), frustrat(ee), decorated U.S. Navy veteran, Husband(twice), father(three times), grandfather(of seven), FM radio veteran, Concertgoer, music collector, muscle car aficianado. Grown up since five. Child since 45. View all posts by rbtaleman