Astroworld: How a Festival Turned into a Tragedy
November 17, 2021
By Amanda Bang
On Nov. 5, 2021, one of the biggest tragedies involving concerts in the U.S. happened in Huston, Texas, at a festival called Astroworld. From that night, a total of 10 people died, the youngest being a 9-year-old boy. Uncountable members of the audience were injured. What really happened that night to lead to such an unfortunate event?
The festival featured Travis Scott, a 30-year-old American rapper, as the main star for the show. Of many things, he is well known for his album “Astroworld,” which was what the festival in Houston was named after. The Album was a huge hit in the U.S., garnering him number one of the Billboard 200 album chart. The actual festival took place in Houston, Texas in the NRG park, which held up to 50,000 spectators to the sold out event.
The excitement and the chaos of the crowd for the festival could be seen even before the concert started. From Mycah Hatfield’s Twitter post which has an on site video, it can be seen that the craze of the crowd was there from before the show. The video shows multiple people running into the venue spot, many tripping, climbing over walls, and even knocking over the security detectors. According to Hatfiled, the crowd “destroyed the VIP security entrance” and “people were trampled.” This was at 2:00 p.m., which was seven hours before Travis Scott came onto the stage and marked the beginning of the deathly crowd surges.
There were multiple accounts of crowd surging and trampling from that night posted on social media. One viral post on Instagram from Seanna Faith details what happened from one person’s point of view on the chaos that broke out in the crowd of the concert. She wrote in detail about how she and the crowd could not move on will.
“Within the first 30 seconds of the first song, people began to drown- in people,” she wrote on her Instagram account.
She also recalls seeing “floor of bodies” of fallen people in the crowd. In the same post, Faith claims to have asked for help from the security and the cameraman present at the concert, but she said no help or care was given.
She was not the only one who felt there was negligence of the authorities and people involved in the concert to what was going on. There are many other social media posts with disturbing videos showcasing people dancing and blocking the way of police cars carrying unconscious people to audience members shouting “stop the show” but getting very little response.
Only more tragedies were heard after the festival ended and was publicized. The initial deaths reported was to be eight people, but it has gone up to 10 as of today. CNN reported on Nov. 15 the youngest and the Most recent death to be Ezra Blount, a 9-year-old boy who had gone to the concert with his father to see his favorite artist.
As this devastating event is gaining media attention, some question who is responsible for such a disaster. Many point to Live Nation and Travis Scott himself, as many lawsuits have already been filed directly to them. Live Nation is an entertainment company that is credited as an organizer for the Astroworld festival. Although both parties did present their apologies to fans and families of those who were lost and promised to provide compensation for tickets, neither of the two have directly indicated who should take responsibility for the disaster as of yet.
In the midst of the passive actions from the people and organizers involved, multiple news outlets reported on Live Nation’s history of safety violation and also its relation to other concert tragedies of the past. According to this NPR article, some Live Nation safety related incidents include a 2011 stage collapse in Indiana where seven people were killed and many injured, or other safety violations such as a 2018 incident where a Live Nation employee was hit on the head by a 6 foot falling metal post.