Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival in Houston leaves 8 dead and dozens injured

Concertgoers who attended Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival at NRG Park Houston last Friday (5 November) shared their horrific experience. It went viral overnight on social media, gaining the whole world’s attention. The festival left eight people dead and dozens injured. 

In a news conference on Saturday (6 November), Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said that some 50,000 people attended the music festival. At around 9:00 p.m. the crowd “began to compress toward the front of the stage”, causing panic and injuries. “People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic,” he continued.

Seanna Faith shared her experience on an Instagram post, saying that, “We begged security to help us, for the performer to see us and know something was wrong. None of that came, we continued to drown.” She said it seemed like she was watching a Jenga tower topples - person after person were sucked down. She went up on a platform to inform the staff about the incident, but was completely ignored. 

One of the footage that circulates on Twitter shows that a man was ignored by a staff member when he reached out for help after he saw a kid was dying in the arena. He even got yelled at by the staff. 

As reported by Billboard, one of the injured concertgoers filed a lawsuit against the artist and the concert organisers, saying that disaster was the result of “a motivation for profit at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety” and the “encouragement of violence”.

According to Reuters, the rapper was actually aware of the incident. He did pause the concert twice for a moment, but then continued on. A Youtube footage which has been removed due to copyright violation shows that Scott called out to the audience less than a half hour into his performance, saying, “I wanna see some ragers, man. Who wanna rage?”

During the first pause, Scott was seen saying, “There's an ambulance in the ... whoah whoah,” to the crowd. However, soon after he continued the show, pumping up the audience by shouting, “Two hands to the sky, I want to make this ... ground shake."

The rapper then paused the show again after he noticed people started to pass out. He asked the security guards to help, but the show continued moments later. He re-energised the crowd, encouraging them to make an “earthquake”. 

Scott yesterday (9 November) released a statement via his Twitter, saying that he is absolutely devastated by tragedy. “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival. Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life,” he tweeted. 

Travis Scott is known for his high-energy performances that are chaotic, where the concertgoers are encouraged to take part in a raucous nature involving mosh pits, crowd surfing and stage diving. Also, the rapper’s concerts have always been associated with rebellion, and this is not the first time this kind of disaster occurs during his concert or performance. 

Back in 2015, Scott was sentenced to one year of court supervision after he pleaded guilty to the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago. Chicago officials said the rapper encouraged his fans to vault security barricades. At that time, no one was injured. In 2017 during his concert in Arkansas, Scott was arrested after he encouraged fans to bypass security and rush the stage. One man was left paralysed after falling from a balcony during this show. 

One of the footage recorded by a concertgoer shows Scott encouraging a fan to drop down from the second-floor balcony into the crowd below, while saying, “They gonna catch you. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared!”
Julian Kimble, who wrote a review on Scott’s 2018 Astroworld performance for the Washington Post, said that, “In terms of energy, he wants the energy he’s giving out on stage to be reciprocated from the audience, almost in defiance.”