The Astroworld Tragedy

Travis Scott, a well-known multi-platinum selling rapper is under a lot of heat. Known for his wild and raging concerts, Scott may have gone too far this time. Scott is mostly known for his 2018 album “Astroworld '' featuring popular artists like Drake, Kid Cudi, and Juice WRLD. The success of his album led to a 2019 tour in which he made $53.5 million dollars. Not only was the album and tour successful but the brilliant, minded Scott took advantage of the success and created an annual event called Astroworld Festival. Astroworld Festival was held in 2018, 2019, and now 2021. Scott was born in Houston, Texas and pays tribute to his roots by having the festival located in Houston every time. The festival is a place where Scott fans come from all over the United States to enjoy the nostalgia of the album and listen to Scott along with other performances like Drake and Lil Baby. You can think of it as an equivalent to Lollapalooza. Previous success in Astroworld festivals lead fans to believe the same about Astroworld Festival 2021. Everyone was in for a rude awakening.
Astroworld 2021 started off early on November 5, 2021. There was a whopping total of 50,000 attendees at this festival. Some of the attendees got in by pushing through security in bunches and trampling people just to see Scott. All hell started to break loose when there was not enough security to take care of all the shoving and stomping over peoples’ bodies. Pictures surfaced of fans crushed against the railings just to see the performance. The most puzzling part about the entirety of this is how completely negligent the fans were to each other. There is no excuse for the lack of mindfulness that these concertgoers had for each other. The videos and pictures still surfacing today are devastating to see because of the confirmed deaths and injuries that arose. Overall, there were 8 confirmed deaths and over 100 people that needed medical attention. Pictures and videos swarm the internet of attendees screaming and pleading for Scott
to stop the concert and notice that people were physically getting crushed and trampled right before their eyes. One video shows Scott, keeping up the performance with an ambulance surfing through the crowd to help. Another devastating video came out of two concertgoers climbing onto the stage and screaming how a person just died and to go relay the message to have the show stopped. All warnings were ignored, and the show went on.
The aftermath of all this has been truly devastating. Although Scott is known for his raging concerts and wild actions, no one could really predict such traumatizing circumstances like this. While police and FBI are still investigating, fingers are being pointed in every direction. Travis Scott posted a series of Instagram stories that included him apologizing, sharing his condolences to all affected, and going on about how he would have never kept going if he knew what happened. He truly looked torn up over this... But could he have prepared more? Scotts’ girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, spoke out on her Instagram story as well defending her husband and sharing her grievances to everyone. Scott announced that he will be refunding every single person who was in attendance that day. He is continuing to comply with Houston police and FBI to help as much as possible. One of the performers of the night, Roddy Rich said he is donating all his earnings that night to the families and communities affected by this tragedy. A lot of information is still up in the air.
Due to the depth of hurt the Astroworld Festival is going to cause, let this be a lesson for all artists that want to be known for raging and wild behavior. The safety of your fans should always come first, no matter the price. Do not have such an extravagant festival if you do not have enough space or security to uphold the safety of the fans.
I would like to acknowledge the people whose lives were taken during this festival: Mirza Baig, Rodolfo Peña, Madison Dubiski, Franco Patiño, Jacob Jurinke, John Hilgert, Axel Acosta Avila,
and Brianna Rodriguez. My deepest and most sincere condolences go out to everyone who is and will be affected by this devastating time.