A giant mechanical beast built for a video-game championship dropped 1.4 metres (4.6 feet) above an empty walkway at a packed Hyderabad arena on Friday night, turning a televised final into an evacuation. No serious injuries were reported, but one stagehand received treatment for a bruised wrist as 7,200 spectators were ushered out.
The incident happened during the Iron Crown Masters, an esports tournament built around The Last Colossus: Deccan Siege, a game about a giant creature attacking a futuristic city. On Sunday, technician Chandra Mansur came forward with claims that warnings about the overhead rig had been repeatedly logged before the show.
Mansur, who says he helped install the prop, told The Plausible Post that he kept a dated record of 18 alerts over three days. He said event staff were told the creature’s head would remain suspended while a brake fault was checked, but the final was allowed to proceed.
A warning before the final
The 4.8-metre-tall prop began lowering at 21:14 as players entered the stage for the deciding round. Video from the arena shows it stopping above a marked aisle; spectators nearby stood and moved towards the exits as stewards directed the crowd away. The arena’s overhead screens went dark, and the match ended without a winner.
Mansur said the alerts appeared on a rigging control display during rehearsals and included repeated warnings about load movement. He shared a photograph of the dated maintenance log and a short clip of the prop swaying during a sound check. The Plausible Post could not independently verify every entry, but the event operator confirmed that the rig had been inspected before opening.
We were looking at the same warning for three days, and then they put the biggest piece above the crowd.
Chandra Mansur, stage technician
The operator, Pixel Forge Events, said the prop’s movement was caused by “an unexpected mechanical irregularity” and that the stage had been cleared as a precaution. It said a technical review was under way and denied that organisers had knowingly ignored a safety alert. The company did not answer questions about the maintenance log or whether the prop had been tested under full load.
Tournament faces a costly pause
The final was part of a three-day event with 24 teams and a reported ₹6 crore prize pool (about €650,000). Pixel Forge had also budgeted ₹18 crore (about €1.95 million) for production, venue hire and broadcast. Sponsors have paused promotional posts while the remaining matches and a planned game launch event are reviewed.
Bystrík Chudík, an event-safety consultant who attended Friday’s final, said the evacuation was orderly but the spectacle left little margin for error. “A moving set piece can be entertainment until it is above a live audience,” he said. “Then the organiser has to show that every warning was closed, not merely acknowledged.”
Hyderabad officials said they had requested the operator’s permit and inspection records and would decide by Tuesday whether the arena could host further public events. The review will also examine why the walkway beneath the prop remained open during the final. Pixel Forge said it would keep the set piece grounded until checks were complete.
The incident has unsettled India’s fast-growing competitive gaming circuit, where organisers increasingly use elaborate stages to make online games feel like live spectacles. The Iron Crown Masters had been promoted as the first Indian tournament to feature a full-scale moving creature from a locally developed game. For players and fans, the promised show ended with a quiet, empty stage and a question about what was hanging above it.
