While seeing The Weeknd’s tour-opening show last week, a Philadelphia guy allegedly lost his balance and tumbled over an escalator rail, plunging 40 feet to his death.
Hugo Sanchez, 32, who fell on Thursday and received head injuries, was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital but later died.
The Weeknd’s first stop on his North American tour, Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, witnessed the horrific collapse shortly before 11 p.m.
His fall seemed to be unintentional, according to Philadelphia Police, who informed DailyMail.com that “no foul play is suspected.”
The Weeknd, who posted a thank you to Philadelphia for helping to ring in the tour, went on to perform in New York and Boston. He has not made any mention of the incident on social media.
The tour’s promoter is Live Nation, which was also the promoter of Travis Scott’s deadly Astroworld Festival in 2021 that resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
According to Philadelphia Police, Sanchez fell around 40 feet as he was seated on an escalator rail and lost his balance.
According to Bob Lange, Senior Vice President of Communications for the Philadelphia Eagles organization, which manages the Lincoln, the event most likely took place as people were exiting the facility after the music ended.
According to his LinkedIn page, Sanchez attended both Temple and Messiah Universities while working as a paralegal at The Rothenberg Law Firm.
Sanchez’ sister Karen Nayeli Sanchez posted a tribute to her brother on Facebook.
‘Hugo Sanchez was the best big brother and he is going to be missed so much. Thank you to everyone who has reached out we love you guys so much. There are no words our hearts are broken.’
Friends who knew Sanchez said he was ‘full of life’ and ‘full of energy.’
‘Hugo was an awesome person. He’d love to travel. He was a good friend,’ Jammal Ransom told 6ABC.
He added that his friend leaves behind a legacy of a lust for life.
‘Obviously, have a good time while you’re here and make the best of it and all that, but yeah, it’s just unfortunate,’ Ransom said.
According to The Inquirer, staff who worked at The Weeknd performance received an internal letter from Lincoln Financial Field expressing sympathy and support for them.
“We recognize that many of you may be feeling a variety of emotions as a result of the unfortunate event that occurred during the concert last night. As much as we cherish them, we are dedicated to supporting them. As a reminder, there are tools out there to help you through tough times.
The event has not been brought up by The Weeknd on social media.
Due to a widespread power outage, his “After Hours til Dawn” tour’s first show at the Rogers Centre in Toronto was postponed.
The Weeknd’s first stadium tour, The After Hours Till Dawn Tour, is in promotion of his fourth and fifth studio albums, After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022).
The tour, which has been in the works for two years, was initially scheduled to start on June 11, 2020, in Vancouver, and end on November 16, 2020, in London, England.
However, all of the original dates were postponed rather than cancelled and rescheduled in favor of an outdoor all-stadium journey owing to worries about the COVID-19 epidemic and health issues associated to indoor arena events.
The Weeknd and his team have had to rethink almost all of the concepts that were intended for the first 2020 tour due to the considerably larger venues on the schedule.
They ultimately decided to go large because of his recent Super Bowl Halftime performance, it turns out.
Longtime creative director La Mar Taylor said, “We obviously took influence from the Super Bowl performance — and enlarged it,” adding, “There were so many limits and restraints around that performance that we could not completely fulfill the vision we had for it.” Today, we can.
Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and South America will each receive additional legs.