AKON - AKON FANS RIOT AT DANISH CONCERT

AKON FANS RIOT AT DANISH CONCERT

R+B singer AKON's free concert at a shopping mall in Denmark descended into violence on Wednesday (20Feb08) when fans began rioting as police evacuated the venue due to a fire alarm alert. The Smack That hitmaker put on the free gig at Fields Shopping Mall in Copenhagen, but demand to enter the 1,000-capacity concert area exceeded the organiser's expectations and around 2,000 people were forced to watch Akon's performance from afar. Mall director Jens Geppel says, "It was a free concert and we knew that many people would come, but there were a lot of people there, more than we had expected." And there was more trouble for police soon after the concert began - when Akon was three songs into his set, a fire alarm was set off, prompting cops to usher the large crowd out of the retail centre. But fans were not pleased and protested as they were being evacuated. The unrest escalated once everyone was outside as concert-goers started hurling rocks and drinks bottles at the officers, resulting in eight arrests. Several people were injured in the incident, but none are thought to be serious. The fire turned out to be a false alarm and mall security have launched an investigation into what went wrong.