Tragic events unfolded last Friday at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival. This was the third annual Astroworld Festival held by Travis Scott. On the first night of this year’s festival, there was a large crowd of excited fans that stampeded the festival, breaking through security and killing nine people in the process. A crowd crush can have enough force to bend steel, and certainly enough force to squeeze the oxygen from people that were caught in the surge.
The crowd surge wasn’t the only thing causing people to be injured. Multiple people described Scott’s concert like being trapped in Hell itself. The technical bass beats used throughout the concert caused a significant amount of anxiety and increased heart rates among the crowd, causing many to pass out. Also, the extremely limited amount of space in the crowd led to a severe lack of oxygen, creating an additional cause for people passing out. There were people dancing atop ambulances and videos of people chanting “stop the show” directly in front of Scott himself, and he continued the show.
Scott’s apology to the media also proved disastrous. Holding his head in his hand with a black and white filter, he attempted to apologize. He said that his prayers were going out to the families of the deceased and the injured, and that all he wanted was to create a positive experience for his fans. His apology is being slandered on media platforms for being ingenuine, especially due to the fact that he posted tweets before the concert encouraging his concert-goers to sneak in.
There is debate surrounding placing blame on Scott. There are some that attended the concert and reported not hearing anyone telling Scott to stop the show and having plenty of space to breathe. However, this is not the first time Scott put on a concert that’s gone wrong. In 2015, Scott was arrested at the Lollapalooza performance for telling attendees to climb over security barricades. Another time in 2017, after a show in Arkansas, he was charged with inciting a riot, disorderly conduct, and endangering the welfare of a minor.
Whether you support Scott or not in this situation, the Astroworld Festival proved to be a horrible tragedy. Scott is currently undergoing lawsuits and has agreed to pay all of the charges for funeral costs. There are several TikToks explaining the situation from the fans’ points of view if you’re interested in learning more. The world is heartbroken for the families of the deceased and injured, and we can hope that everyone can find peace after this calamity.