Tens of thousands of music fans at the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware were evacuated from the The Woodlands festival grounds in Dover on Saturday when rain, lightning and high winds threatened concertgoers.
Video screens near the stage announced the area was under a tornado warning and officials began evacuating The Woodlands just before 10 p.m. as the band Kings of Leon was scheduled to take the stage,
according to the News Journal.
A message over the loudspeaker asked fans to evacuate the area. Festival organizers also tried to reach attendees through Twitter.
The annual Firefly Music Festival features headlining and emerging artists which drew 30,000 attendees in its inaugural year in 2012, and jumped to more than 80,000 in 2014. Organizers said they expected close to 90,000 this year,
according to the festival website.
WCAU-TV reported that Steve Aoki and The Chainsmokers were the only acts able to reschedule for Sunday after their performances were postponed Saturday night.
One music fan found a silver lining in the stormy weather, like San Diego resident Stephanie Boyer who attended the festival with her boyfriend Jason Farell.
"I'm from San Diego where the weather is perfect, all the time. I'm not going to lie – this is kind of exciting," Boyer told the News Journal.
Others, like Rebecca Martinez-Grieve, said they had difficulty leaving the festival grounds. Martinez-Grieve was in the disability camping area.
"Firefly has been great about sending a cart to take us places, but when the evacuation came my friend had to carry me out," she said. "There was no way to drive a cart through everyone freaking out."
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