Falling Incident in Swedish Concert Hall Leaves Casualties

An elderly man fell from the seventh level balcony of Sweden’s Uppsala concert hall

The person who fell was a man in his 80s, having fallen into the foyer of the hall as others were waiting to be admitted into the venue. He passed away at the scene.

He fell upon a man in his 60s, who later died from injuries — his companion, a woman also in her 60s, was harmed but did not sustain life-threatening injuries, according to police.

Around 1000 people were present at Sweden’s 8-level Uppsala Konsert and Kongress (UKK) hall which was hosting a tribute concert to ABBA musicians Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. According to the BBC, this incident occurs just days before ABBA's release of their first new album in over 40 years.

"We received a call about someone having either jumped or fallen from a high altitude inside the concert hall in central Uppsala," Magnus Jansson Klarin, a police spokesman, told the AFP news agency.

The fall happened at 7 PM, half an hour before the concert was scheduled to start but was cancelled following the incident. The concert hall was cordoned off by police and witnesses were also interviewed.

Klarin stated that the matter was still being investigated. While it was initially too early to tell whether a crime was related to the incident, "the picture [that has emerged] is that it wasn’t an accident that caused the man to fall," said police spokesperson Johan Thalberg. "[But] nothing indicates that he wanted to injure other people."

"We are all shocked by the tragedy that happened and our thoughts go out to the deceased, their relatives and their families," wrote the UKK on their Facebook page.