Last Friday tragedy struck at Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival. It was just supposed to be another music festival where people left extremely happy that they got to see some of their favorite artists perform. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case as the festival left eight people dead and many others injured. 

This event was the deadliest American concert since the 2017 mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas. There has been a lot of blame passed around on whose fault it actually is: is it Travis Scotts, Securities, Medics, the Venues? Well, let’s first talk about what exactly happened at the concert. 

What Happened? 

Last Friday, Travis Scott headlined the first night of his two-day festival, held annually at NRG park in Houston, Texas. The Astroworld Tour launched in 2018 and has been growing bigger and bigger ever since. This was shown at this year’s festival with an enormous amount of people. There was already some worry going into the night that there would be too many people for this small venue but they still went on and essentially hoped for the best. The festival is a joint venture between Scott and promoters such as ScoreMore Shows and Live Nation. 

Scott’s set began around 9 p.m. and officials estimated there were about 50,000 people attending. As his set went on, crowds began to compress towards the front of the stage to get closer to Scott. Fire Chief Samuel Pena said, “That caused some panic and it started causing some injuries.” 

No one from Scotts team noticed at first or even Scott himself, but about 30 minutes later he noticed blue and red flashing lights coming from the crowd and said, “There’s an ambulance in the crowd.” Soon after Drake walked out on stage people started pushing even more. Scott left the stage at 10:15 p.m., finishing a full set of 25 songs. 

Why Didn’t He Stop the Show? 

A lot of people have been wondering this exact question. Travis Scott had all the power in the world to stop the set but he didn’t. 

“Right at 9:30 people started to go down,” Houston Police chief Troy Finner said. “Our people stepped up and immediately went to the producer and told him people are going down. This show ended at 10:10 p.m.” In response the producer said, “You cannot just close when you have 50,000 individuals that young. We will have rioting.” 

Scott responded to criticisms on an instagram live video saying, “Anytime I could make out anything that was going on, I’d stop the show and help them get the help they need.” This is hard to tell how true this is or not because obviously no one else has his angle of what he could see. Scott did stop the concert and a few times one of which was when he noticed someone in the front passed out. 

The concert wasn’t even the crazy part. When the gates opened at around 2 p.m. people were busting down the gate and trampling over people. This event was handled horribly as this shouldn’t have happened. 

Concertgoers also tried to stop the show several times chanting, “Stop the show! Stop the show!” in between songs and even when Scott was right next to them. Scott was probably two feet away from some people but he still didn’t seem to notice the chanting occurring. People were even climbing onto the tall poles where lighting and camera guys were to tell them people were injured and the show needed to be stopped. None of them really seemed to know what to do though. 

How Many Were Injured and Killed?

Officials have reported that eight people have died. Autopsies are still pending for most of the victims so we don’t exactly know what their cause of death was. The people that have died in this tragic event include John Hilgert (14), Brianna Rodriguez (16), Rodolfo Angel Pena (23), Axel Acosta (21), Franco Patino (21), Jacob Jurinek (20), Madison Dubiski (23), and Danish Baig (27). 

25 people were taken to the hospital by ambulance. Of those 25, five were younger than 18. One of the people injured in the most critical conditions was a 10 year old who went to the concert with his father. 

Were There Plans to Prevent this from Happening?

There were two plans: a medical plan by New York City-based ParaDocs Worldwide Inc. and A security plan by Austin-based promoter ScoreMore shows. 

It was obvious that the medical staff was very overwhelmed by the number of injuries. ParaDocs Worldwide released a statement disputing allegations it lacked medical staff and equipment. 

A Paramedic that goes by the name @remi.rich on TikTok explained everything from his perspective. According to him he was walking with three other EMTs through the crowd when people started to wave them down after a girl passed out. They were walking to the girl when other people started to have problems too so the other EMTs went with them. As time went on more and more cases came up leaving all paramedics to have to work alone. Another thing he mentioned was that the radios were not working due to the sheer loudness of the concert so there was no way to call for backup. As he was walking from his first call he finished, people were pulling on his shirt telling him, “I broke my ankle, I dislocated my shoulder, I feel like i’m going to pass out” but he couldn’t do anything about it since people were dying and they were in more critical condition. A common conspiracy that he debunked was that the medical staff wasn’t qualified. He said in a TikTok that, “Every EMT that I saw wasn’t new to the job. Everyone in the med tent was the absolute A-team. They had 2 doctors, a SWAT physician, a ton of SWAT medics, and seasoned paramedics.”

Travis Scott’s concerts are known for being crazy. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct after urging fans at Lollapalooza to climb over barricades. Even in the 2019 Astroworld festival three people were hospitalized after the crowd ran over the security barriers. 

It’s hard to know whether you should blame Scott or his team for all of these concert mishaps. But we definitely know that everyone has some sort of part in all of this happening. In the next article I will dive deeper into the Lawsuits against Scott and Drake and what everyone is thinking about this situation. Who do you think is at fault?