Thompson concert with half a million people passes without major incident

More than half a million people attended Marko Perković Thompson's concert at the Zagreb Hippodrome on Saturday night and to everyone's relief, everything went smoothly.

Organizers said the size of the audience was around 504 thousand. There had been major security concerns given the size of the event, but in the end, there were no major incidents.

The concert ended at around midnight and the crowd began to disperse with police controlling pedestrian flows.

Things were back to normal in the capital on Sunday morning. Traffic reopened in the neighborhoods around the venue after midnight and the city was largely quiet - normal for a Sunday in July. Hundreds of city workers began cleaning up the Hippodrome area at around 3 o’clock this morning.

The event passed with any major problems. Police said they arrested 123 people, most of them for possession of pyrotechnics. They confiscated 121 flares and smoke bombs.

"Given this number of people, I think the number of incidents is negligible - tens of misdemeanor offences,” said Krešimir Mikić, the head of the traffic division at the Zagreb Police Department.

Medical teams were also on stand-by at the Hippodrome and in the surrounding area. The Health Ministry said 1,179 people required assistance. Emergency teams transported 45 patients to the hospital, one of them by helicopter. The most common reasons for needing medical help were sun-stroke, excessive alcohol consumption, allergic reactions, and minor injuries.

The organizers of the concert and the Interior Ministry thanked everyone involved in putting on the event and concertgoers for ensuring things went as smoothly as it did.

Thompson's team issued a statement on Instagram thanking his fans.

"Your behavior and mutual respect towards one another demonstrated the power of unity and love of music in the best possible way." the post reads.

Interior Minister Davor Božinović also issued a statement on Tik-tok thanking everyone involved.

"This was not just a concert it was a celebration of unity, patriotism, and the values that bind us with a clear message: Croatia is a democratic, European nation where everyone has the right their music and identity and to gather peacefully," said Božinović in the video message.