September 27, 1973

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On this day the Bibb was closing out its run of Detroit 9000 following the afternoon shows and had agreed to a promotion with a local radio station. That night “Save The Children” the new attraction starting the next day, would be shown and the station invited their listeners to attend. However, instead of handing out paper passes or giving them away via on air contests, you know, like free tickets to the fifth caller type of thing, they just told everyone to show up and be admitted on a first come first serve basis.

Well before time to open the doors, a huge crowd gathered and in the pushing and shoving to try to squeeze onto the sidewalk in front people were pushed through the glass doors and the situation turned into a mob scene. This article from the morning paper tells the story fairly accurately although it was obviously written by someone who was not experienced in the movie theater or crowd handling business.

Come to think of it, you have to wonder what was going through the minds of the theater people when the agreed to this event without detailing how passes needed to be distributed in advance.