MILWAUKEE — A Patti LaBelle concert at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater ended abruptly Saturday night after a bomb threat, organizers said.
Videos Posted Social media showed the star accepting flowers and talking to an audience member who was celebrating her 70th birthday. “You got eight years,” LaBelle tells an audience member before several people bring her offstage.
“hold on!” LaBelle calls in the videos as confused audience members ask what happened.
Pubist Theater Group, which operates the venue, said LaBelle’s show was “postponed following a bomb threat investigation by the Milwaukee Police Department.”
“We are grateful to the Milwaukee Police Department and their efforts to ensure a safe and orderly exit for our customers and staff,” the group said in a statement. A statement posted on Twitterhe added, is working with LaBelle to recast the show.
Police said WTMJ Sunday morning when the theater was safely evacuated and searched by K-9 units. He said that no explosive material was found and there is no danger to the public.
said audience member Kathryn Brunson Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the packed theater was emptied shortly after LaBelle’s performance began;
“Someone picked up the microphone and said we had to evacuate the building because there was a bomb threat,” Brunson said. He shared a video of the evacuation. On Facebook Live, capturing a stream of people filing out of the venue. Later in the video, a crowd of audience members stood outside the building, which by then had been surrounded by caution tape.
“This is crazy, y’all,” Brunson remarks several times in the video.
LaBelle, 78, had not publicly addressed the evacuation as of Sunday morning.