At a concert by the rapper Travis Scott in Houston, at least eight people were killed and dozens more injured. The concert was a part of the two-day Astroworld music festival about 50,000 people attended it. The accident happened when people started pushing towards the stage and started panicking.
The exact reason for the panic is still unknown. But witnesses from the concert said people were acting weird during the show; some people were fainting and passing out.
Molly McNamara said that she had attended other Travis Scott performances but that the atmosphere at this one had a different energy.
The crowd said Travis Scott even paused three times to point out people who were fainting, so others could help them.
Stampede at Concert
“Travis Scott, he took pauses to point at the crowd to say, like, ‘Go help them — they’re passed out,’” Angel Rodriguez, a concert goer, said on Saturday morning. “He did it like three times. He pointed to the area where it was and said for everybody in the area to go help them and bring them to the front.”
Another concertgoer said in a statement, “I got there around 3 and saw people already struggling to stand straight.” “There was a lot of mob mentality going on, people willing to do whatever to be in line for merch, food, shows, you name it. A lot of fights broke out throughout the day.”
Chief of Houston police department, chief finner, said that the reasons behind the disaster are still unclear, but an investigation is going on.“I’m sending investigators to the hospitals because we just don’t know,” Chief Finner said. “We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened, what caused the surge.
People trying to stop the Travis Scott concert saying people are really hurt please stop. And they just get ignored??? What is this world coming to? 8 people are now dead #ASTROWORLDFest https://t.co/LXk1LD9TNe
— Janelle Pierzina (@JanellePierzina) November 6, 2021
The organizers of the festival, live nation, stopped the concert earlier for public safety.
Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement on Saturday, “What happened at Astroworld Festival last night was tragic, and our hearts are with those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the terrifying crowd surge.”
Crowd to Blame?
Some people blamed the crowd for not taking care of each other. In a 25 second video posted on Reddit, a man climbs up the stage and asks for help, but the crowd ask him to “calm down” and calls him “ a bitch”
In another video, Mr. Scott is on stage and tells the crowd: “I want to see some rages. Who wants to rage?” Moments later, he says, “There’s an ambulance in the crowd, whoa, whoa, whoa,” apparently trying to calm the commotion.
Another statement about the rapper from an attendee was, “He was way different onstage this time,” “He usually wants people to riot, but he was more intuitive to the crowd — but it didn’t seem to work.”
“I honestly blame the crowd for not taking care of each other,” she added. “I’ve seen Travis multiple times live, and it gets crazy in the crowd, but never have I seen people disregarding unconscious bodies to fend for themselves.”
People who attended the concert said that everyone was pushing and trying to get into the from the beginning of the concert. Even when people passed out, no one seemed to stop. And at a point, there was no way to move around, and people couldn’t get out.