Large Video Screen Falls During Mirror Concert in Hong Kong, leaves 2 injured

By Edward Era Barbacena

The Hong Kong authorities will investigate why a large, heavy video screen fell from the ceiling during a concert by a popular boy band at a government-run venue, injuring two dancers, officials said on Friday.

The accident happened during a performance on Thursday night by Mirror, a 12-member band in the Chinese territory whose popularity has grown during the coronavirus pandemic.

In footage from the concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, audience members scream after the video screen lands directly on one dancer, edge-down, apparently striking his neck. The South China Morning Post newspaper later reported that one of the two male dancers had suffered neck injuries and was in intensive care. It said the other was in stable condition.

Kevin Yeung Yun-hung, Hong Kong’s secretary for culture, sports and tourism, told reporters on Friday that one of the screen’s suspension cables had broken. Each of the screens for the venue’s four-sided projection system measures 5 meters by 3.9 meters, or 210 square feet, according to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which manages the coliseum.

John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said in a statement early Friday that he had asked the leisure department and other agencies to investigate the accident and “review the safety requirements of similar performance activities.”

“I am shocked by the incident,” Mr. Lee said. “I express sympathy to those who were injured and hope that they would recover soon.”

The Hong Kong authorities said in a separate statement that the government had contacted the concert organizers on Wednesday — the day before the accident — about “stage incidents in the past few days.” It did not elaborate, and the leisure department could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Tuesday, a member of Mirror, Frankie Chan Sui-fai, fell off the stage at the Hong Kong Coliseum during the second day of the band’s scheduled 12-day series of concerts, The South China Morning Post reported. He fell about a meter and was not seriously hurt, according to the report.

Makerville, the concert organizer, apologized for the Thursday night accident in an Instagram post early Friday, adding that Mirror’s remaining concerts at the venue would be canceled. The band’s management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mirror, which draws on K-pop as an influence, formed in 2018 through a reality show designed to manufacture a hit boy band. Its members sing in Cantonese, a Chinese language spoken widely in the former British colony.

The band’s escapist lyrics have been a balm of sorts for an anxious population during a tumultuous period of Hong Kong history.

In 2019, the city was consumed by months of mass protests triggered by a proposed law to allow extraditions to mainland China. Then came a thicket of pandemic-related restrictions that have battered Hong Kong’s economy, as well as a sweeping national security law that has curtailed freedoms with breathtaking speed.

Mirror’s popularity soared as Hong Kong struggled. The band sold out concert halls, accounting for some of the city’s only large-scale events during the pandemic. Its members’ faces have been plastered on billboards, buses and subway ads.

The coliseum where Mirror was performing on Thursday opened in 1983, according to the leisure department’s website. It seats about 12,500 people, the site says, and meets local demand for a “world class indoor stadium.”