Community Corner

Sands Show Tent Rocked by Thunderstorm

Paul Anka concert delayed 45 minutes after crowd is evacuated.

The thunderstorm that ripped through Bethlehem Thursday night nearly brought the house down before Paul Anka had a chance to.

Anka’s show before a sold-out crowd of 2,000 people in a giant tent outside the was delayed for about 45 minutes night after the thunderstorm made the tent “shake and shift,” according to one eyewitness. Sands Casino personnel evacuated the tent, though many had already began to leave, said Pamela Varkony, an Allentown-based motivational speaker and blogger who attended the show.

“People became panicky, no stampede, but they beat it out of the tent and back in to the casino,” Varkony wrote in an e-mail.

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When the show finally did start, Anka thanked the audience for its patience.

“I wasn't sure we were going to see each other tonight when I saw a piece of tent fly past my window,” Anka said, according to Varkony.

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Anka, who had participated in the of the new Sands Casino Hotel, was in Bethlehem for a Musik at the Sands show, a casino-sponsored benefit for ArtsQuest and the construction of its planned festival center at the SteelStacks campus.

Electricity was to more than 700 city homes as a result of the storm, according to PPL. About 2,800 homes across the Lehigh Valley also experienced power outages.


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