An Australian athlete at the center of frantic search efforts after he vanished from a nightclub in Spain was found dead inside the music venue—where he may have laid dead for up to 30 hours while revelers inside apparently failed to notice him.

Rising rugby league star Liam Hampson, 24, was on an end-of-season trip traveling around Europe for several weeks. Friends accompanying Hampson on the trip became alarmed after Hampson went missing for 24 hours, with his companions writing in a social media post that he hadn’t been seen since around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday at the Sala Apolo nightclub in Barcelona. They added that his disappearance was “very out of character.”

Then at around midday on Wednesday, authorities found a body believed to be Hampson’s on the floor of the nightclub. Authorities said it appeared Hampson had fallen from a substantial height of as much as 30 feet. Curiously, the Sala Apolo hosted a show by English metal band Paradise Lost on Tuesday evening, raising questions about how a huge crowd of revelers had apparently not spotted Hampson’s body.

Police in Spain did not disclose exactly where in the venue the body was discovered, confirming only that staff at the club had made the upsetting find. Hamspon’s death is being treated as an accident, officials said.

Hampson played rugby for the Redcliffe Dolphins, a team based in the Queensland state of northeastern Australia which is about to enter the top division of the country’s National Rugby League (NRL).

His father, Brett, wrote on Facebook that his family was “heartbroken to say the least.”

“Liam had a heart of gold and was a much loved son, brother, grandson, uncle and friend,” he added. “Words can not express our grief. We can not thank his mates enough for being there with Liam having the time of his life and assisting in the search for our boy. Our thoughts are with them.”

Liam’s sister, Tiarna, also paid tribute to the friends traveling with her late brother, writing: “[You] made sure his last days were the best of his life.”