Concerts and musical tours have started up again in earnest, which is why Travis Scott created the Astroworld Festival, featuring performances by himself, Drake, SZA, Bad Bunny, Young Thug, etc. On Friday night, the festival was happening in Houston, Texas. Things turned deadly – there was a huge crowd surge, the medics were bad at their jobs, people were trampled and at least eight people are dead. There are hundreds of injured people:
Tragedy struck Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival as crowd surges during his Friday night headlining set left 8 dead and over 300 injured, according to Houston officials.
50,000 fans attended the show, which led to a surge during Scott’s performance at the festival outside NRG Park, the Houston Chronicle reports. At a press conference following the concert, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña clarified the timeline. He said that at 9 p.m. the crowd began surging forward during Scott’s set as there was panic and people running for safety. At that point, Scott paused the show several times to ask security to help out fans, and members of the fire department were sent into the dense crowd to rescue the injured.
At 9:38 p.m. a “mass-casualty incident” was triggered, at which time CPR began to be administered to several unconscious fans. Meanwhile, social media posts like the below show the frenzied scene as officials tried to rescue concertgoers.
“It happened all at once,” Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite said. “It seemed like it happened over the course of just a few minutes.”
A source close to the festival confirmed to Variety that the quick response from Astroworld security and staff on site undoubtedly saved more people from being hurt, and teams are working to provide police with drone and ground footage for investigation. The source also confirmed that police are looking into a drug spiking incident in a targeted area of the festival, which could account for the 11 cardiac arrest incidents that Peña confirmed during the press conference.
An eyewitness, Variety staffer Emanuel Okusanya, said that fans began moving en masse toward Scott’s stage, one of two on the stadium grounds, at least two hours before his performance was scheduled to begin. As his set time approached, a countdown clock began counting down, which caused the already-boisterous crowd to surge toward the stage. Once the set began, multiple mosh pits broke out and people began falling, causing a “domino effect,” Okusanya said. People began pushing to get out of the overcrowded area, but virtually the entire stadium floor was packed with people. Additionally, “around 250 people” had been crowded just outside the entrance earlier in the evening and may have contributed to a bottleneck at the exits, he said.
The Houston sheriff confirmed the anecdotal stories about someone with a needle who was jabbing people, but that was only one part of it – there are also anecdotal stories about a lack of trained medical personnel at the festival, stories about how the set up for Travis’s performance contributed to the deadly chaos, and while Travis did stop the performance a few times to try to encourage people to look out for one another, he apparently kept on performing well after Houston authorities were trying to shut it down, and after the city labeled it a mass-casualty event. Predictably, many people injured in the melee have already gotten lawyers and the first lawsuits have already been filed. There will be so many lawsuits in the coming days and weeks, as there should be.
Travis issued a statement on Twitter, and he also posted an emotional video to Instagram. Kylie Jenner was there in Houston too and she issued a statement about how sorry she was that all of this happened.
— TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 6, 2021
Kylie Jenner issues a statement regarding the tragedy at Astroworld Festival:
“Travis and I are broken and devastated… I want to make it clear we weren’t aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing.” pic.twitter.com/VaiVx4Y6jj
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) November 7, 2021
JUST IN: Travis Scott shares video addressing the tragedy at Astroworld Fest pic.twitter.com/MSjVpJH3fK
— XXL Magazine (@XXL) November 7, 2021
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
What a nightmare.
I don’t know why is there no word about lawsuit or holding anyone accountable. If there was a mass shooting with 8 dead it would be all over the news.
Travis and organisers should be prosecuted
Lawsuits are already being filed.
I hope this is the end of his career.
It has been all over the news and police are still investigating.
this is not the first time he has encouraged behavior that has led to injuries at his show.
between that and the poor planning/prep, this was bound to happen. and his claim that he paused the show goes against eyewitness accounts. I read one on twitter that was heartbreaking…a woman and her friend who got swept into/UNDER the crowd, people being trampled, she tried to jump onto a camera platform to get attention on those people and a stage manager threated to push her OFF the 15-foot high platform.
on a side note, I heard one of his songs for the first time the other day and was…well…underwhelmed. I was listening and thought “this is crap, why is this on the radio? who put this crap out?” and then realized who it was. I don’t understand why he has a career or why he is headlining a festival. he’s not a very good rapper. I hope this is the final nail in his career coffin because he’s just not very good.
Travis is a complete POS. I fell down a rabbit hole on Reddit and the amount of videos of him being a complete asshole is staggering. He was encouraging the crowd to “rage” and break the fences at the festival, this isn’t the first time either. There are videos of him encouraging the same behaviour in New York that left someone paralyzed, video of him encouraging the crowd to “f*ck him up” in regards to a 10 year old that he accused of trying to steal his shoe while he was crowd surfing, his shoe wasn’t even tied and could have just fallen off, then he spits in the kids face. Another video where he makes fun of a camera man that was hired by his team to film the concert all because the man wasn’t filming his good angles. He has a history of inciting violent behaviour in his fans and I hope he gets fully canceled over this.
Yet, even after all that, McDonald’s chose to work with him !
My favourite video in response to this preventable tragedy was the one with Dave Grohl stopping his concert to tell a guy to quit fighting in his concert and then kicking him out.
Honestly, I’m surprised at Drake because there is a video of him stopping his concert in Australia to call out a guy who was groping girls in the audience.
Dave Grohl stopped singing at a concert I was at as a teenager to yell at a guy for groping a girl. It’s when I first became a fan of his.
Linkin park stopped mid song when chester saw a fan (fans?) fell. it was dark and that fans wasnt anywhere near the stage and make sure the crowd chant safety steps before continuing
there’s kurt cobain too
and greenday
f travis scotts and the organizer
Found it!
You don’t come to my show to fight. You come to my show to f***ng dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR530bo4ceU
The thought of being crushed by a crowd in a pandemic while getting stabbed with a random dirty drug-filled hypodermic needle is indeed the stuff of nightmares.
Read that he was charged twice before because of fans rushing the stage. Out of curiosity (because I don’t know) is he really that popular?
He encourages his fans to jump barricades, rush the stage and abuse security.
It is for this reason that I don’t take his crocodile tears very seriously about this. How horrific for all the people stuck in that crush. Humans in tightly packed groups are as different from a regular crowd as flood waters are from a puddle. The Hajj had several crush fatalities a few years ago prompting a re-design of the area where the people move.
He had an earpiece in and undoubtedly heard something of what was happening in the crowd.
Yes, I tried to reason that maybe Scott is young and was high while performing and didn’t know. However, after hearing about his previous incidents, this man and his team need to be held accountable. It’s one thing for a musician to adopt a musical persona; it’s quite another to willfully endanger others for that persona. And him making money off that persona while endangering others? Really gross.
If he encourages that shit, I hope security personnel will refuse to work his shows in the future and make it impossible for him to book venues. Because I have no confidence that he’ll learn lessons from this, nor will it kill his career. Fans will defend literally ANYTHING.
@swack 50,000 people showed up so I think we can surmise he is that popular.
@Swack he is extremely popular with white teenagers
@chimney What a weird thing to say especially when you look at the 8 victims who seem to be an ethically diverse group of people
What I said has nothing to do with the people who died but Travis Scotts fanbase overall. If you look at his concert videos or fan sites it is mostly white teens. That’s his target audience, angsty white teens from families with healthy disposable incomes to spend on endless limited edition collaborations.
@chimney so you can tell by looking at people in concert footage about their financial status? Such odd statements. I saw plenty of people of colour in the footage from astroworld. You are making some weird generalizations so my question is why?
@Dizza hey man they’re his fans not mine. His approach is selling expensive merch and brand collaborations to v v young overwhelmingly white teens from suburbia. This is nothing new in marketing, you follow the money. Are you one of those people who gets offended when white people are called white? Because I haven’t said anything offensive really. My original comment was an attempt to explain why his popularity may be a surprise to people who aren’t in that demographic.
@chimney my problem is with people who make statements without any factual evidence to back it up. You said yourself that your comment was based on footage you saw at a concert, that’s ancitodatal and not evidence. That’s your perception, not reality. It’s also rude to dismiss that he has fans who are people of colour and not rich and who died at his concert
@dizza please get a grip.
@chimney stop spreading your “ideas” as facts
yea this is an odd comment to make in the midst of a tragedy, and smells like an opportunity to play the “all white people” game again.
So I work in live events and concerts and festivals. HOW HOW HOW did any insurance company underwrite this festival and give him an insurance policy?? SERIOUSLY. Do just one ounce of googling and you can see his repeated encouragement of this kind of sh*t. Whatever insurance company worked on this festival is also a freaking idiot and should be shut down.
Also, I feel extremely strongly on this point – NO EVENT SHOULD HAVE 50K PEOPLE. Go ahead, please explain why that many people should ever be in one location together like this. Ever.
Yes he is that popular with a certain group of young people, and yes he was charged for instigating a riot at the 2015 Lollapalooza in Chicago and convicted. They stopped that concert. He’s also had lawsuits from concert goers who have been hurt at his concerts where he egged people on, particularly one person who was thrown off a balcony and was partially paralyzed. He’s known for telling the audience to rush security. Now it’s possible with all the pyrotechnics he didn’t see everything, and I was originally willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but with his past track record I think it’s pretty bad.
I don’t completely understand LiveNation one of the promoters of the show. They do a lot of festivals and concerts and they did the Lollapallooza where he was convicted of instigating a riot and stopped that concert before deaths. Why not here? Where they had issues early with people rushing the ticket and metal detector entrance. The only thing I can think of is this festival is created and owned by Travis Scott himself and Live Nation is hired to administer it. Lolla in Chicago is owned by the Jane’s Addiction guy. This looks really bad for Travis. As it does seem like he is a big factor on a few counts on how this came about.
He is known to incite unruly behaviour at his concerts and his video was not emotional at all,granted maybe he is in shock.
I knew he did not attempt to stop (or he tried only once according to 1 video) but I did not know he likes to incite such behaviour. Does he not think of his partner and daughter In the audience? That’s evil. I know they were in the VIP section but what if an unruly crowd sets fire to it or brings it down?
if he’s upset, i doubt it’s for anyone but himself.
there is video of him refusing people’s pleas for him to stop the concert, saying “you all know what you came here for.” the event was overcapacity because he encouraged people to gatecrash (and later deleted his tweets).
at other concerts, he encouraged people to beat up a 10-year-old and jump from balconies. he’s a bad dude.
He’s upset because some venues will refuse to book him or some cities will refuse to give permits to his shows or he will have difficulty getting insurance without which other venues can’t book him. He’s upset because this will hurt his ability to profit.
He’s trash and I hope he faces consequences.
Absolutely horrifying. That entire organization should be shut down. They are unfit and unqualified to hold events. And him? Yeah the videos have been around of him at multiple events encouraging and riling up his fans to “defy security”. He’s disgusting. I have no doubt he cut corners and was negligent. I hope those families get every cent he has ever earned or ever will. Absolutely inexcusable.
This is probably the end of the Astroworld Festival.
Travis 100% knew people were dying at his concert. I think there’s even a video where he continues to sing after seeing someone being taken away (I believe they were dead/close to it). Absolutely horrendous. He should be sued to the max.
I think it’s kinda hard to say that so definitively. Because while it may look like the performer can see something, they could have lights shining in their eyes preventing them from seeing anything. So idk…I feel like some caution is needed with these sorts of statements.
Fair point but there are also videos of two people climbing up to tell the cameraman and sound / light people to stop and they didn’t. I’m quite sure production crew are in constant contact with each other. To make things worse Tiktok is full of videos of other singers who could see small and big audience fainting or being sexually assaulted and they stopped the show. Also at some moment, the crowd was chanting at this idiot to stop.
I get your point but you could literally see ambulances in Kylie’s Instagram stories. And there’s a video of him continuing to sing after seeing someone being carted away so I don’t buy that he was completely out of the loop throughout.
Ear pieces. Walkie talkies. Event management in the wings. There are a thousand ways to alert an artist. And there are protocols. Travis better fucking settle these cases fast or I suspect he risks devastating leaks about what went on, what he heard, the audio over his ear piece, hell footage of security signaling to him off stage. Do I know any of this exists? Of course not. But if he was still performing after Houston PD labeled it a mass casualty event, I full anticipate the discovery phase of these lawsuits will be ugly as hell.
Gruey, exactly. My sister ushers at events here in Boston. This incident was a major failure at numerous points with plenty of blame to go around. There are protocols, or there should be – some cities are far more lax than others and some venues don’t comply with even local safety laws. At these events, there are numerous people wandering around with walkie talkies, radios, ear pieces. Every usher team has one; the concession stands have them; security has them, sound and lighting people have them. Police, fire, and an EMT team are always on site at large events. And the Fire Department has the final say. I have been at concerts where Boston Fire has shut a show down by cutting power to the stage, turning on house lights, and taking over the public address system because the crowds had blocked fire aisles. My sister says that is her number one priority: Keep those aisles clear and get security in if there’s a rush on the stage or the crowd mobs an aisle. And the performer should have little to no say as to whether an unsafe event continues.
I have been to a lot of these festivals and worked at a few backstage. First this was at an outside stadium/park venue with 200,000 capacity. 50,000 were ticketed. The 50k was an agreement with the city. Probably for riot control as rioting was a reason the police say they didn’t immediately stop the concert when they saw the first people getting ill. They thought it would cause a riot. The rumor is more people may have rushed in who didn’t have tickets, but I doubt they were over capacity. The problem really is the general admission and not enough space for people to get out of the crowd. They did have the barricades up and the fire lanes with the barricades, like they do at all of these festivals. The problem is if you have a crowd that is really amped up and if it is hot and they have a surge of people pushing to the front there is no where really to go people then they pass out and get crushed. It also looks like it was a wave of people and it happened all over which is a terrible turn.
Now while I normally wouldn’t say the performer is responsible for whether the concert should go on because of safety issues, still they are in the best position to see it and also to stop their fans from making it worse. In addition in this case this was Travis Scott’s festival. He wasn’t just a performer. Meaning all the performers who performed before he received a piece of that money plus he hired the company who organized the festival. It’s more on him than most, and with his past actions at concerts and his conviction for starting a riot at the 2015 Lollapalooza in Chicago, I’m thinking he has way more responsibility on this than the average performer even if he didn’t see people dying. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
He knew they were passed out but I doubt he knew they were dead. I dunno, from the sound of it, he has a history of encouraging rough crowds, but I can also see the argument for not abruptly ending the show with the crown riled up like that. Seems like calling attention for security to get to the person, but continuing on with something a little more mellow might be the right call. Hindsight is 20/20 etc.
I was thinking and about to comment the same but after reading more below about videos of the performance it sounds more and more like he Knew and he chose to keep going – for like a really long time – b/c it was being filmed.
Yeah, I’ve been reading more and watching some of the videos and the more I see, the worse it looks for him. He kept playing for 40 minutes after they called it?!? It’s hard not to see that as deeply callous and intentionally endangering. Even if he didn’t know anyone had died, it was clearly possible.
There are videos of at least one young woman and a young man getting up on stage and telling them to stop because someone was dead in the crowd. They were ignored
The videos coming out of that show are horrific.
How traumatising for those involved. Aside from pausing a few seconds here and there Travis didn’t exactly try to diffuse the situation in any way. There are reports that even though the organisers (after having liaised with the police) agreed to stop the show he carried on playing for another 40 minutes and basically finished his set.
To make things worse, what the hell is that disgusting apology video? Can’t he just show some respect and stop rubbing his head ridiculously- teenagers died at his show FFS. If you are going to speak in person (which he didn’t need to do) at least do it properly.
Speaking of, did Drake say anything?
There’s damaging footage of him not responding to the chaos. The Houston police chief met with him before the concert, they were concerned because Scott has incited crowds before. He’s trying to finesse it now.
Considering Scott continued this musical persona while people were getting injured and he was charged, he sounds young and full of hubris. Maybe narcissistic. I wonder if he justified all of this behavior by imagining himself as some kind of musical genius or legend? How out of touch is he?
He’s 30, not that young. Full of hubris, definitely. People are posting videos of performers who stopped their concerts for various emergencies, they really make him look bad. He undoubtedly has insurance to cover lawsuits but as others have said he’ll have trouble getting into venues or getting new coverage.
What he does is akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre.
It’s worse than that. He basically doused the theater in lighter fluid, barred the exits, and lit the match himself.
Travis continued after security tried shutting down…there is video (I have not seen, I have been told) where he said he was NOT stopping. Kylie’s statement saying they were unaware of any fatalities? Maybe….but with what WAS going on – SHOULD HAVE STOPPED! He is also at fault!
The police escorted all the VIPs (including Kendall, Kylie and Stormi) right past dead and unresponsive bodies. All on film.
I get that people pass out, ambulances are called and you might not notice/realise what is happening, but if they were escorting the VIPs out they must have known what was happening.
Lots of people have said they went to get help, only to be told the show was being filmed and they were not going to stop for anything.
There’s footage from the stage showing him hearing people screaming for him to stop, him acknowledging hearing them, and him deciding to go on anyway. There is blood directly on his hands. Amd is Kylie denying seeing what was in front of her? Again, there is footage. This damage control is pathetic and is not being called out for what it is.
Kylie Post video of the two guys on top of the ambulance that was trying to get to the victims, if like it was great fun. She is full of sh*t and took the video down once the reports started coming in and videos were coming out.
It wasn’t just him either, there is a video of two fans that climbed up where one person was filming the concert, begging them to get on their radio to stop the show, and the cameraman seemed to interact with her for a bit, but then ignored her and went about filming.
Apparently the woman in question has posted that not only was she ignored, she was threatened with being thrown off the camera stand if she didn’t stop (15 feet straight down into the crowd).
It was just infuriating to see. And Kylie and/or PMK can’t control the narrative on this, people can see it with their own eyes.
Yeah. Drake hasn’t said anything and saw that he is being sued along with Travis. Another rapper with Astroworld came forth and expressed condolences and actually seemed sincere unless TS messy instories. From what I can tell of clips, Drake was on stage at beginning with Travis but doesn’t appear to be when it really got messy. I could be wrong though. Most of the clips show Scott alone when it really gets bad
Dude is a sociopath.
There are two stories out there about his lack of regard for people.
He walked away when someone was having a seizure in the studio. Not to call an ambulance, literally walked away.
Another is when he found out someone on his staff was harassing and later assaulted a woman, he not only was uncooperative, he kept the staffer on and encouraged it to continue.
He is garbage.
This ^^. A guy is paralyzed from one of his concerts, after Scott encouraged him to jump from a third story ledge and the crowd pushed him. Absolutely horrific, no idea why he is still able to perform. He’s plead guilty twice for inciting crowds.
There is damaging video of him clearly seeing the crowd and what is going on, and continuing to play. Also dimwit Kylie posted video of the ambulance trying to get through the crowd, as if it was part of the entertainment. She later deleted it. But total BS that they had no idea how bad it was, it was right in front of them.
How has he been insured? Seriously, how?
When something like this happens, there’s always a bench of enablers revealed.
@Queen- yes and once again we can see how the Kardashian kash, konnections and korruption all run deep.
This info from Variety is so off base: “A source close to the festival confirmed to Variety that the quick response from Astroworld security and staff on site undoubtedly saved more people…” There was no “quick response.” Fans ‘responded’ and were rebuffed, helped who they could in the crowd. We now know it was 37 minutes between when they knew (acknowledges) there was a serious problem and the show ending. Also the info about the drug ‘spiking’ was first reported at TMZ and no one who was there saw or experienced that (at least so far) so that seems so creepy deflection to change the narrative. The police mentioned one security guard had an issue and maybe that was true but otherwise…
So sad and the kids with all their reports of their experiences are so heartbreaking, especially those who tried to get attention earlier on. And then what people went through … so so sad, horrible and avoidable. Travis Scott … no words.
Yes, there is a huge contrast between what people at the concert were posting, and what the headlines in the news stated. At one point, there was a headline that “Kylie and Kendall are ok”, and the comments were vile.
But we know how Kris controls the media, so it will be interesting to see how this all falls out.
Yeah when I saw the headline about pregnant Kylie Jenner being ok after concert, that was the first time I had seen anything about it until I started googling about it. I was like seriously? We have to write an entire piece on billionaire Kylie being ok? Of course she’s ok. She wasn’t with the plebes.
There is so much reporting of this horror show which is in direct conflict with so many first person accounts and actual video footage. It is astounding.
I’ve been haunted this weekend by the stories and videos coming out of this nightmare. This should be the end of his career. He has been arrested twice before for inciting the crowd and encouraging them to rush the stage so it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. And he did not care. He saw the ambulance trying to get through the crowd, stopped for a few seconds then turned around and immediately started up the show again yelling that he wanted to see “the mother f*cking ground shake”. He had to see the screaming and begs for help from the crowd. He’s a monster.
I have to agree he is a monster. I hope he goes broke and lands in jail. This story is horrific on so many levels. Those poor people and their families. I still don’t understand how his set was able to continue for nearly an hour after a mass casualty situation was declared.
What’s also horrifying is that Scott makes MONEY off of this behavior. He creates this melee scene at concerts despite knowing the dangers—probably to sell tickets and albums.
And I’ve seen Scott’s style compared to that of punk artists. NO. From what I can tell, this melee is nothing like what usually happened/happens at punk shows. There’s anarchous behavior and then there’s punk show mosh pits.
@HelloDolly!
I agree. I’m a metal head and have been in mosh pits for longer than I care to admit publicly lol. I’ve gotten bruised, dislocated my shoulder. But the kind of chaos that is in those surges? As a performer he holds a lot of responsibiliy, especially since he encourages it.
He won’t go broke… people will still fall all over themselves for him and all Kartrashians. Until people stop posting about them, watching them, buying their shit, etc. they will never fail or go broke.
I think Travis Scott is one of those artists who love watching the crowd go wild, from the safety of his stage, because he thinks they’re going crazy for his sh*t music. Didn’t he encourage fans to jump off a balcony at a show a few years ago? One fan was left paralysed. I think he was saying “jump, they’ll catch you’ (fans below). He deserves every lawsuit coming to him.
@HelloDolly! 100% Every punk or metal show I’ve ever been to, people are quick to stop and pull you up off the ground if someone falls! It’s a community-minded bunch of folks. This is something else entirely.
Yes, I agree with everyone! My die-hard punk husband who has been to every punk show imaginable was talking to me about the code of conduct at punk shows—moshing was more about self expression than destruction. Scott’s brand of behavior seems more on par with “let’s f*ck sh*t up and destroy things because we can” and has no pathos based in actual social change or politics of equality or the social justice that underscores early punk music.
Honestly, Scott’s persona seems more about the money and has no social good behind it.
I suppose this is a different generation so its odd for me to see kids go crazy over a modern rapper with God awful tone deaf music. Then again I remember Woodstock 99 where Limp Biskit incited a riot during “break stuff” and multiple women were r*ped.
Lock him up.
I live in Houston. The press conference the day after it happened was a total CYA shitshow. I’m not absolving Travis Scott at all- asshole made the wrong choice at absolutely every moment, ignored a clear emergency situation, ignored fans begging him to stop, etc- but if you’re a local authority and have declared a mass casualty event at a concert, maybe it isn’t the smartest thing in the world to brag at a press conference that said concert was stopped 40 minutes later and not immediately? I honestly don’t know wtf they were thinking.
And I don’t believe that drug story for a single fucking moment, not unless some proof comes to light. The whole thing screams attempted coverup to absolve the event organizers and local PD of their monumental, criminally negligent fuck up and putting some way to blame some uncontrollable chaos agent in the crowd out into the universe and hoping the excuse sticks. It hasn’t stuck, and it hasn’t been talked about since the initial press conference. No one is buying it.
@Plums – Good point. I’m not absolving Travis either but why didn’t the authorities immediately stop the show? It shouldn’t really have been left up to him.
He was not told, the authorities made the choice not to end it until 10:10 because they said they were afraid of a riot. That is insane. I’m not absolving Travis of anything, I too have read where he has encouraged violence and been charged with inciting a riot at past concerts. I’m not a fan, I’m old enough to be his mother. Just wanted to say that he was not told & it was the Houston Police who did not stop the concert when they should have. i don’t know how much Travis could see, he did stop several times & asked for help for someone but he could’ve thought they just passed out which happens a lot in a big crowd. I think there is plenty of blame to go around.
This- not only the performers, but the venue owners and operators, the city council, the mayor, the chief of police and the chief of the FD. They were all part of determining safe capacity for health, fire and general safety concerns. And it was a massive comms failure on multiple levels once the shit hit the fan. Nothing less than criminal.
I’m sorry I believe the needle story, but I don’t think it absolves anyone. My daughter has been to two festivals this year and she told me that happened and passing around other drugs has been a mainstay at both. She saw Travis Scott at a concert 2019 and she said his crowd was nuts back then and he just egged them on. She wasn’t surprised.
Apparantly, this crushing pressure started when that countdown clock turned on and continued the entire concert. The only way to get bodies out of the crowd was to crowd surf them to the edge. People climbed up on stage equipment to staff members, told them people were dying, stop the show, Travis kept going.
He’s been arrested twice and received probation both times, in two different states, for encouraging crowds at other concerts to ignore security, climb over barricades, crowd up against the stage. He encourages this behavior.
I haven’t seen this reported anywhere, but apparently the show was being broadcast live on Apple+. That means the camera operators who ignored the people who climbed up begging for help could very well have not been working for the event organizers, but for Apple or whoever was producing the livestream. That may explain why they refused to swing their cameras onto the carnage – it would have gone to people’s homes, not the venue screens. Also, based on my experience of event filming, they probably had their own comms. There would be someone on their team listening to both the event radios and the livestream team radios, but otherwise they’d be separate. They may well have notified their team something was wrong, but obviously nothing got through to the stage. It does mean another deep pocketed defendant for the lawsuits, though.
As to the plug not being pulled, it seems obvious, but ACAB and this may well be one of those situations where the police having ruined people’s ability to trust them cost lives. The police would love to be able to shut down Black concerts and bust heads when people get upset.
He does not care one bit! Every excuse that will now come out is to avoid lawsuits and loosing money. Look up the story and the video of the girl that got up in one of the camera towers to ask for help (her name escapes me but her story and statement she put out describing what happened is all over the net and has been verified and confirmed by others) she tried to get them to stop the show and the cameraman threaten to push her off the 15ft tower! I was never a fan of him or the Kardashians but im glad people are seeing their true colors, still advertising like nothing happened while everyone else was mourning.
Her name is Seanna Faith.
One of the accounts circulating this weekend described the crush when people went down as human sinkholes and that imagery has stuck with me. Absolutely terrifying.
The girl who wrote that was the one who’s on video getting up onto a platform to try and alert a cameraman to the people dying (and was ignored). She writes so vividly that I had to take several breaks just to get through it, mentioning drowning in people. Horrifying.
And even more horrifying that the show continued while all this was going on. I’ve been at a concert when the artist stopped the whole show because they’d spotted that someone had fainted and made sure they got help before restarting. Travis was still riling up the crowd while people were being crushed.
I’ve never seen something less sincere in my life than Travis addressing this tragedy
Me neither
Absolutely shocking, him nor Kartrashians seem sorry
they’re just sorry that A) they’ll face some blame and B) they MIGHT face some financial repercussions.
hurting the brand is all they care about.
The footage and first hand accounts from this event have haunted me all weekend. Awful and horrific. The one of him watching and continuing to do the robot from his perch while medics are frantically trying to save a lifeless body – just so shocking.
There are so many points where this went wrong. It makes me never want to go to a concert with this type of setup. How frightening it must have been to be in that crowd.
IMO, he does not sound or looked devastated in his video message, he looked like someone just waking up and someone told him he has to say something to the families of this nightmare that happened on his watch. Btw, in the news they are saying Drake and Travis are being sued. I also read that Travis was fined twice before for encouraging his fans to rush the stage. He must have known there was a possibility of people getting hurt. RIP to those who passed on… and sincere sympathies to their families🙏
This whole situation and what happened makes me sick to my stomach.
Those poor first responders trying to deal with this and not to mention hello COVID anyone
Apparently Live Nation agreed to stop the show but then it went on for another 40
Minutes or so. Some disconnect there and It’s horrifying.
Wow. This whole piece by Vanity Fair is ridiculous. Security and police’s quick action saved lives?? This whole show should have been stopped at the BEGINNING when fans literally trampled each other and destroyed the mental detectors. I no longer understand people. However Tracie Morrisey on Instagram had a great compilation of how this is Travis’ brand. He encourages fans to act unruly and wild. There is a doc about his first festival on Netflix and I saw clips, he wants violence and mayhem.
Plus all the other accounts of what happened? He has literal blood on his hands.
He should be charged with murder
Absolute sociopath. He can’t even show real emotion in that apology video.
I’ve only seen one video where he tells the crowd to calm down when he sees an unconscious fan, but…at that point the problem isn’t one fan…HUNDREDS were injured. I can’t even imagine the trauma experienced by the crowd. More than one person has called the experience “demonic.” They literally felt like they were in Hell on Earth watching people dying around them and below their feet.
One more reason for me to never attend anything like this.
A boy of 10 died in that concert. Young people died. Travis will continue his life, he’s getting a baby soon, he’ll forget this in couple of months and be on red carpets smiling.
Meanwhile, 8 families lost their loved ones. 8 young people don’t have future anymore. Many more might have long term injuries, not mention trauma.
I’m so disgusted by this society that will continue to adore Travis and push cameras into his face while grieving families will be forgotten. His career should be over and he should be cancelled.
Organisers should go broke.
Every concert from now on should have extra safety measures. But human life is cheap and we know none of this will happen as it should.
May the victims rest in peace
The ten year old didn’t die, but was one of the injured. The youngest victim that passed was 14.
Nina you are correct, this career should be done but our society is sick and obsessed with celebrity….
Travis, the concert production company and livestream production and the people who were on the ambulance all need to be sued. Travis had stop his concert before because he thought someone threw a shoe at him, but people getting hurt and dying was not on his priority list.
The lawsuits are coming already. I just read an article one of the families is already suing. And I hope they all sue. And i hope this is the end of this so called festival.
The authorities should press charges, not just private people..this was manslaughter
This is horrible. I feel for the families that lost loved ones. I do wonder, how is anyone allowed to have a concert with 50 thousand maskless people during a pandemic? This festival was unsafe for many many reasons. My God.
The stories from concertgoers coming out of this are just horrifying. One young woman (who is seen in a video climbing on a platform and trying to alert a cameraman that people were literally dying on the ground) posted a description of what happened that is so visceral and it’s just unimaginably scary. People literally suffocating and getting trampled over and over, security not paying attention, medics not being able to see where the problems were, and people desperately trying to find their way out of the sea of people. Another young man at the concert posted a video saying it was like being in hell. I am so sorry to the people who experienced this and the people who lost their lives.
I realize performers can’t always see what’s going on in the crowd because of the lighting, but I’ve heard of many artists stopping shows because the pit is getting too rough or someone needed medical attention. There were tons of people in the crowd screaming for help. I just don’t see how Travis didn’t know what was going on.
Maybe we need to look at these huge events/venues that hold 50,000+ people. Maybe this kind of number of people crowding into one place just isn’t appropriate anymore.
I know – $$$$$. The more you pack in the seats the more money everyone makes (artist, venue, promoters, managers).
I’m going to SOFI stadium in a few weeks for a BTS concert. I think its 80,000 seats and sold out. I’m absolutely certain the crowd of mostly women of all ages and races will behave. It is not general admission for one. And the vibe at KPop concerts is just happy and excited not out for blood mosh pit energy. Have you seen the videos of other artists like Jayden Smith and Niall Horan stopping shows until the crowds calmed down? It is doable.
Yes, I’m certain Texas will restrict these events.
I blame Travis Scott for this, 100%. There’s a video on Reddit of the crowd literally crowdsurfing a corpse over to medics and Travis is maybe twenty feet away, clearly sees the dead body, and doesn’t even pause. It’s gross and I hope he gets canceled given his history with inciting riots like these.
How many examples do we need to show us how horrible these people are? The whole Kardashian family and their adjacent people are vile. Travis Scott has done this many times before and just skates by. Hopefully they are held accountable this time but the next concert will probably be sold out.
How nice of Kris to use this tragedy to promote her “billionaire” daughter’s 2nd pregnancy! Did Kris write Kylie’s statement because it is full of lies. They are surrounded by security guards, so she wants us to believe that not one of those security guards received updates about what was happening? Enough with the lies. When will the press start holding these people accountable for their actions?
I’m not that familiar with Travis Scott, but I was at a festival he headlined a few years ago. I ended up leaving early because the crowd got so intense. I was in a crowd crush situation at another show once and just couldn’t handle his set. I saw the crowd from the highway on my way out and couldn’t believe how many people packed in to his stage. And that was a well-run festival with, like, five stages! That was the first thing I thought about when I heard this news. Even without knowing his history of instigating, it doesn’t surprise me.
Sorry, sad, tragic, that people were crush to death because of a concert. There need to stronger federal and state laws about mass concerts.
I was at Black Flag and Minor Threat shows when I was a young punk and I never feared the crowd or the pit like I would fear it now. Those videos scared me, as a former punk, as a mom, and as a human being.
I feel terrible for the victims and their families, but also I feel for the medical professionals who had to treat the victims. Texas is slowly inching out of a Covid wave in which most deaths could have been prevented, and the hospitals surrounding the Astroworld show just needed to deal with a mass casualty incident in which the deaths and injuries could have been prevented.
You have to wonder how much that may have factored in, right? It sounds like they had way fewer medical folks on hand than they should have. I’d imagine people medical professionals are overworked and overwhelmed in Houston at the moment.
I’ve heard a lot more than 8 people died, sounds like a coverup. Travis heard Seanna and that guy on the ladder to the stage along with the crowd pleading with him to stop the show. His response ‘ Stop the show?! Stop the show?! Y’all know what y’all came here for, put your hands in the air!’ Then proceeds to start up the song ”Upper Echelon’ the banger known for eliciting the wildest reaction from the crowd. He loves chaos, now he has to deal with the consequences.
Apparently he shoved his managers who suggested for the concert to be stopped
That is not true, please don’t post rumors that are not factual. The Houston police did NOT tell him to stop nor did Live Nation. They were afraid of a riot and let him play without telling him what was happening. This is not to absolve him of blame, it’s just there is a lot of blame to go around and it’s just not true that he knew people were dying and kept playing.
@Spikey
Sorry but that’s not true there is a video of someone standing right in front of Travis telling him to stop the show and he ignored it.
The video is all over TikTok.
@Coco
Exactly, he heard what they were saying and ignored them!!
God, I have watched so many videos this weekend of artists who stopped their shows after seeing just 1 person drop, and would make sure they were ok.
Adele, Billie Ellish, Linkin Park, Nirvana, Avenged Sevenfold, etc.. And people are literally trying to defend him saying that Travis didn’t see anything??!? Like WHAT
@spikey we really don’t know the exact timeline yet. This is part of the really interesting work of lawyering, frankly. Pulling together thousands of pieces of evidence and putting together a story of what happened and presenting it to the court/jury. We just don’t have that timeline yet but, from everything I’m seeing, it’s not looking good for Travis. If someone wants to make an argument to a jury that Travis was on notice about the danger and acted recklessly, if not intentionally, I think they’re going to be able to make that argument.
Can the public just call it a day and quit monetizing these kinds of people?
You can go to his Spotify page, and click/tap the three dots (…) next to his names and select “Don’t play this artist”. It will stop him from getting money and promos within Spotify.
Excellent suggestion! Thank you. I have done so now for this Monster. For Drake and Kanye as well.
Same!
This is absolutely horrendous. He knew sh!t was happening and did nothing,
He even engaged with people when they were telling him to stop. he said “Who’s telling me to stop? Who said to stop? Ya’ll know ya’ll came for this” and started his songs back up.
At the point of the ambulance, he said “woah, an ambulance” then told the crowd to put their middle finger up in the air, and then told them to put both middle fingers up, and again continued with his set.
The poor girl who climbed up the ladder to get to the camera man was yelling that a person had died and to stop the set. There is a video on tiktok about it (videos are covering all of this), and a camerawoman commented stating that the headset the cameraman was wearing would have been directly linked to the director, lighting, and others. If the cameraman said a simply, “hey we have a problem”, it could have helped. Instead he threatened to push her and the other guy that went up with her off.
This is disgusting. He needs to be help responsible.
FYI, Go to his Spotify page, and click/tap the three dots (…) next to his names and select “Don’t play this artist”. It will stop him from getting money and promos within Spotify.
Well, it sounds like he did call for help and two (!!?!) medics came out to find the person, but I still have no idea why the entire show wasn’t shut down. Who’s call was that in the end? Travis’s?
It was the Houston Police that did not shut it down, they said they were afraid of a riot so let him continue without telling him what was happening.
@Spikey, maybe stop making excuses for this guy, we’ve all seen the videos and read what witnesses/survivors had to say.
OriginalLala, I’m not making excuses and as I said earlier, I’m old enough to be his mother, I’m not a fan and don’t listen to rap music. I’m also not saying he doesn’t have a lot of fault in this because of how he has previously encouraged people to riot, and not pay attention to security/police. I do believe however in honesty. I don’t like when people just throw out stuff and pretend it’s factual. there are a lot of people at fault here along with him, the police/security should have shut down the concert when people broke through the barricades to get inside without going through any metal detectors. However let’s use honesty when commenting, not making stuff up.
@spikey you are making excuses for him and passing the blame. Police spoke to Travis prior to the concert bc of his history of inciting fans to rush barricades and push past security. As someone said above this is Travis’ brand. He invites chaos and is surprised at the consequences. Why is the onus on police to shut it down? It was the responsibility of travis, his team, security and live nation to shut it down when the first person died. They didnt and let 7 more innocents die.
I think Travis is culpable in this, but I also think the Houston police are! It sounds like many of them may have been acting as security at the show. They’re also the ones who sent out the message about somebody injecting people, which just sounds so dubious. I think they really botched this and are now trying to cover their asses. They could have shut it down, Travis could have shut it down. I’m wondering who made the decision not to.
I saw that girl vid on my fyp before I know about the whole thing. I thought it was regular chaos but when I google, 8 people died and hundreds are injured. I was shocked
Fifty thousand people mashed together for hours in the middle of a PANDEMIC with a deadly respiratory virus spread by close contact. What is wrong with the artist, the managers, and the local and state governments that this ever even happened?
I’m so disgusted and sickened. I work in healthcare: we are nowhere near the exit ramp for COVID-19, and it’s going to be getting worse in the fall and winter.
This is just tragic. There has to be better crowd management. There were just so many failures to lead up to the deaths. The festival team, the livestreamers, the insurers (Scott should not be insured or face serious restrictions on how he is allowed to speak to teh crowd), and most of all the POLICE.
I know he’s Black but this is not all on Travis Scott. This is another example of system failure.
Totally agree, there is a whole lot of fault here to go around.
Why did he bother putting a filter on his stupid apology video? Gross.
Why was a 10 year old child at this event or children at all? This is a lesson to parents that trying to be a cool parent can put your child’s life at risk. I can’t imagine how scared and scarred these poor children must be.
This is not the takeaway. There’s no reason that shouldn’t have been a safe event, accompanied by parents.
I went to concerts at that age with my parents. There’s no reason to believe attending a concert will cost you your life.
The only people at fault here are the individuals who chose profit over others peoples lives
in one of the vid I saw on tiktok, a literal ambulance was in the middle of the crowd. AN AMBULANCE!!! Did he think that as a prop? in the middle of the crowd? and what make it more disgusting was some of his fans climb that ambulance and dance on top of it. no wonder internet calling his concert a satanic ritual
I’ve worked a lot of concerts. I sold merch at a large outdoor venue, and we always had an ambulance not far from the crowd and sometimes in the crowd depending on the concert. It’s a pretty good safety idea actually. These concerts people get really hot and pass out a lot. It’s best to be nearby.
I still think in this case Travis Scott was greatly responsible for these deaths. His previous actions, the fact he owns the festival, the fact people screamed at him to stop the concert and he kept going- I think he had to hear it or see something at least, and the problems at the ticket entrance should have alerted him to be careful and he didn’t. The ambulance there though wouldn’t be something he should have thought was weird.
I live in Houston but was out of town for the weekend and just returned. Shortly after we found out about it on Saturday morning , my son texted us and said he had almost gone to the concert but decided not to. I’m still numb about it. It’s just so horrifying.
A thoughtful reflection:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8Cv7bC5/
In Scott’s defense and from the point of view of a musician who has performed in large venues: it is incredibly difficult to know what’s going on in your crowd onstage. The lights blind you if you look out so you’re not focusing on that – you’re looking out into the distance but you won’t be able to see anything clearly, you’re also wearing ear plugs so you can hear yourself. There are ways for crew to communicate with the performer but they’re only going to do it if they receive orders to do so, and they’re only going to tell the performer in that case, for an incident like this. Which they apparently did a couple of times. It’s the responsibility of the producers, the venue, security and local authorities to ensure protocol is followed, adequate security is on deck, and proper comm lines are set up. Keep in mind that information like that may not be relayed real-time to the performer. If comms were properly set up the venue staff and crew etc should have been in sync, but again: the performer is not going to have a live relay of conversations while he’s trying to perform. That being said – it sounds like absolutely no one had their sh** together. It’s entirely possible that while authorities were trying to stop the show that information wasn’t properly relayed. People were sneaking in, people were spiking other concertgoers (and security staff apparently). Prior warnings about inadequate security and plans for handling mass casualty events were not heeded or worked out properly. All of these venues should have crisis plans in place for all eventualities. I’m not sure where the breakdown occurred – producers didn’t ensure the crew were set up properly, the venue was clearly not organized, too little security hired, etc. I know he has a history of inciting his fans; and that’s a serious problem. That’s definitely on him, but there’s a lot more going on in a show like this for him to have any solid understanding of what was going on real-time. The fans themselves – the ones making trouble – can also be held up to blame. If we all went around expecting others to be accountable for us instead of taking responsibility, chaos would reign. But Kylie almost certainly knew exactly what was going down in real-time so her statements are at best half-assed poorly made attempts at contrition.