Crowd Surge kills at least 8 under Travis Scott Set at Astroworld Music Festival – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth
HOUSTON (CBSDFW / AP) – Audiences at a music festival in Houston rose to the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, squeezing fans so close together that they could not breathe or move their arms, witnesses said Saturday, hours after at least eight people died in chaos.
HOUSTON, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 5: Travis Scott performs at the 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park on November 5, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Erika Goldring / WireImage,)
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The pandemonium unfolded Friday night at Astroworld, a sold-out two-day event at NRG Park Stadium. It is estimated that 50,000 people were present. It was not clear what set the crowd in motion.
Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said the audience “began to squeeze together toward the front of the stage,” triggering panic and causing some injuries. Then “people started falling out, becoming unconscious, and that created further panic.” Dozens of people were injured.
Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowds say they are often the result of density – too many people packed into a small space. The pressure can crush the victims and make them unable to breathe. Audiences often run either away from a perceived threat or toward something they want, such as a performer, before hitting a barrier.
A Dallas man who worked at the event said the day after the incident that he was trying to process what he was witnessing. “Instead of listening to music … I only hear helicopters. It’s a wild crime scene with officers everywhere.”
People in the crowd reported lots of push and push during the performances leading up to Scott’s set.
When Scott took the stage, it looked like the audience was rushing forward to try to get closer to the stage, said Nick Johnson, a high school senior from the Houston suburb of Friendswood, who was at the concert with friends.
“It just got worse and worse. Everyone was like you just could not breathe, ”said Johnson, who was close to the front of the stage in the middle of the audience.
Johnson said fans started crushing each other and people started screaming. He said it felt like 100 degrees in the crowd, which was so thick that he and his friends could not move.
“Everyone fainted around you, and everyone was trying to help each other. But you just could not move. You could not do anything. You can not even lift your arms,” Johnson said.
Scott seemed to be aware that something was going on in the crowd, but he may not understand the seriousness of the situation, Johnson said.
In a video posted on social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at some point and asking for help from someone in the audience: “Safety, someone is helping really fast.”
In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was “absolutely devastated by what happened last night.” He promised to work “with the Houston community to heal and support families in need.”
– TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 6, 2021
Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite, who was close to the front of the crowd, said the increase “occurred immediately.”
“Suddenly we had more people down on earth who were experiencing some kind of cardiac arrest or some kind of medical episode,” Satterwhite said. “And so we immediately started doing CPR and moving people right at that point.”
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Satterwhite said he quickly met with promoters who agreed to end the event “for the sake of public safety.”
Amy Harris, a freelance photographer for The Associated Press, described an “aggressive” audience atmosphere throughout the day because of the way fans behaved – pushing and hurrying on stage barricades and banning VIP and access areas.
“It was definitely the most chaotic festival environment I’ve been in,” Harris said. “I felt insecure all day.”
She was caught behind a barricade while photographing artist Don Toliver because about 300 fans rushed to the area. They ended up behind the security barricade with her.
Harris said she encountered a similar scene at another point in the main act. She left the media grave after three songs due to the disorder, which resulted in people being pulled over the security barricade to receive medical attention.
At one point, Gerardo Abad-Garcia was pushed so close into the crowd that he could not move his arms from his chest. During Toliver’s appearance, which came before Scott’s appearance, he began to worry about his safety.
“I just could not breathe. I was compressed,” he said. A security guard helped him and others climb a fence and get out.
He described the audience during Scott’s set as a wave that “went back and forth.”
Some people lost their shoes and the ground was filled with clothes, water bottles and other debris. He said some people tried to help those who had fainted on the ground, while other concertgoers seemed to ignore them and continued to watch the show.
After Scott’s concert, Abad-Garcia saw medical staff perform CPR on a person who appeared to be unconscious when the person was taken away on a golf cart.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner urged people not to draw conclusions about what caused the increase.
“I think it is very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight, ”said Finner.
Authorities did not disclose the causes of death and the dead were not immediately identified.
Scott, one of music’s biggest young stars, found the Astroworld Festival in 2018, and it has taken place at the former Six Flags AstroWorld venue every year since, except for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The 29-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that she is pregnant with their second child.
Drake joined Scott on stage for the concert – which was livestreamed by Apple Music – and posted photos to Instagram after the performance.
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The deaths were reminiscent of a 1979 concert by The Who in which 11 people died and about two dozen were injured as thousands of fans tried to enter Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum.
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