Deadly Astroworld Festival: Travis Scott vs Live Nation
Ten people have been confirmed dead with hundreds more injured after a deadly crowd surge at Travis Scott’s annual Astroworld Festival. Scott hosted his annual music festival on the evening of November 5th with high hopes for the return of the festival season post-pandemic. However, by the end of the night, hundreds of fans were left trampled by a crowd crush, and ten tragically lost their lives.
The tragedy has left millions of people speculating as to what went wrong. Some die-hard fans completely defend Travis, while others claim he hosted a demonic ritual. There is never a “right opinion,” but the most reasonable one might be something in the middle. There is no credible evidence that Scott hosted some kind of satanic sacrifice. The idea that the massive golden model of Scott’s head acting as the gate is representative of a 16th century painting of Purgatory and Hell, as some fans claim, is baseless and ridiculous. The Astroworld Festival is dedicated to the memory of Houston’s now-demolished Six Flags AstroWorld, and the massive model of Travis’s head is meant to represent the gate to enter the former theme park’s popular ‘Texas Cyclone’ ride.
A large portion of the internet blames Travis Scott. After all, the rapper did continue to perform for 37 minutes after the Houston police declared the concert a ‘mass casualty event’. However, we don’t know for sure whether Scott was aware of the injuries during his show. If he did know, it would be a massive risk to continue performing after learning about deaths in your concert. Is it reasonable to say that Travis would have prioritized singing songs onstage over the lives of his diehard fans? Perhaps not.
Furthermore, Travis Scott’s attorneys have indicated a document that states that only two people had the power to stop the show—the festival director, and the executive producer—neither of which were part of Travis’s crew, and neither of which warned Travis about the mass casualty declaration. It seems that a massive miscommunication, or, more likely, ignorance and negligence on the part of the director and/or producer, led to Travis being uninformed about the crisis at the concert. In fact, an attorney representing Scott told the Wall Street Journal that the artist only found out about the tragedy hours after the show had ended. Should the artist really be held accountable if he couldn’t do anything, even if he knew?
Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest live events company and the producer of the Astroworld Festival, has had a long history of safety violations. The conglomerate and its subsidiary, Live Nation Worldwide, have been linked to hundreds of deaths and injuries over the last 15 years. The Houston Chronicle reported about 200 deaths and at least 750 injuries after searching past records, reports, and news coverage.
LiveNation’s operations document did not plan to deal with a crowd surge, despite similar incidents such as this surge happening at Scott’s 2019 Astroworld Festival, and only warned that a “civil disturbance/riot” was possible, without explaining how to avoid an event such as this.
It is clear that LiveNation horribly underestimated the planning necessary for the show. As the concert producers, their job is to ensure that the show runs smoothly, and plan the event in a way so that the crowd can move safely throughout the entire show. The performer’s only job is to perform. Travis is a musician, not an event coordinator, nor is he trained medical personnel. The responsibility for ensuring everyone’s safety is not the performer’s, but the producer’s. In this case, the producers have failed to execute their job, and as such, lives have been lost.
However, LiveNation is not the sole responsible entity for the Astroworld tragedy. Travis Scott exhibits a pattern of reckless behavior, such as encouraging moshing and fighting. He has been arrested twice for inciting riots and disorderly conduct at his shows. At a 2017 concert, he encouraged a fan to jump off of a high balcony, which led to a different fan being forced over the railing and breaking his back, paralyzing him from the waist down.
In a previous concert, Travis ordered his fans to beat up a concert-goer who tried to steal his shoe, and in his 2018 album ASTROWORLD’s first track ‘Stargazing’, Travis raps “it ain't a mosh pit if ain't no injuries”. The artist has encouraged his fans to jump barriers and sneak into festivals without tickets, and even wrote in a since-deleted tweet from May 2021, “NAW AND WE STILL SNEAKING THE WILD ONES IN.” A lawsuit filed against Scott claims that this tweet “recklessly encouraged fans to breach the barriers and otherwise actively encouraged a culture of violence.” Travis cultivates a reckless concert culture among his fans, which is chaotic and often dangerous. Any other artist may have been held less liable, but Travis’s history of encouraging ‘raging’ and wreaking havoc sets Astroworld apart.
The Astroworld Festival tragedy was not simply a result of unpreparedness by the event’s producers, but a byproduct of Travis’s apathy towards concert protocols and safety. This event has potentially changed concerts for the music community forever. It might even lead artists to be more cautious of their fans in the future—however, it will be each artist’s own decision whether it is worth sacrificing hype for safety.
by JANET LIU