That, in combination with the narrow entry for the main entrance, led to much of the trampling. The dead were actually scattered throughout the club but the crush to get out of the main door led to many of the deaths (Augustine, 2013)
This caused a bottleneck as there was a narrow hallway between the entrance and the area where the crowd was. Much of the deaths were due to burns, smoke inhalation or from being trampled in the rush to get out of the theater (Belluck & Zeilbauer, 2003)
The engulfing of the stage took less than a minute overall and the mass panic ensued in less than twenty seconds when the music stopped and everyone made a dash for the exits. In addition to being around the stage, the foam lined much of the ceiling as well which just led to a chain reaction as each section of foam simply ignited the next thus engulfing the club (Bidgood, 2012)
However, city regulators apparently never caught that and the club's infrastructure was never updated. Also, the foam that was used was not publicly available and should not have been used for the purpose that it was (O'Connor, 2013)