Eight Dead, Dozens Injured At Astroworld Festival

Eight people are dead and dozens of others are injured at the Houston Astroworld Festival, in what authorities are calling a “mass casualty incident” from a panic crowd crushing itself.

Washington Post:

The mass-casualty incident took place at the sold-out 2021 Astroworld Festival, where an estimated 50,000 people gathered for what was supposed to be a night of fun. After 9 p.m., fans began moving closer toward the headline performer, sparking what Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña called a “tragic night.”

“That caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” he said. “People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”

Peña said the investigation was ongoing and that the causes of the deaths had not been determined. Some 17 individuals had been taken to nearby hospitals, he added, with at least 11 of those in cardiac arrest and requiring CPR. Fans as young as 10 were transferred to hospitals for treatment, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.

“Our hearts are broken,” said Hidalgo, the top administrative official in the county.

The incident marks one of several tragedies to strike at a concert, where packed crowds, loud noise and sudden confusion have fueled past mass casualty events. In 1979, 11 people were killed when thousands of fans tried to get into a Cincinnati music venue to see famed British rock band The Who. There have been numerous incidents in the years since, including a 2018 stampede at a nightclub in Italy that left six dead.

Travis Scott performs on Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park in Houston on Nov. 5, 2021. (Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
Concertgoers at the Astroworld Festival described a fast-paced turn of events in which people close to the stage found themselves with nowhere to escape.

“Everyone from the back pushed forward, and if you were at the front, you were kinda trapped,” Jacob Corbett, 19, a student from Arizona, told The Washington Post. “The atmosphere was like people were really pushing and shoving.”

Corbett, a big fan of Scott’s, flew to Houston with his older brother to attend the festival. As Scott prepared to take the stage, the crowd grew animated, he recounted. A timer counted down the musician’s arrival at around 9 p.m. But Scott paused the concert shortly after taking the stage, he said, when he noticed some people at the front of the crowd appeared in distress.

Joey Guerra, a music critic for the Houston Chronicle who was covering the festival, told The Post that he started noticing things were going wrong when he saw a small emergency vehicle cutting through the crowd, lights flashing, right when Scott was about to go onstage.

“I couldn’t tell if anyone was on it because it was very dark,” he said. “Then, as this show progressed from 9 o’clock on, I saw more kind of cutting through closer up to where the stage was. You could see the emergency vehicles going back and forth.”

Guerra, who stayed in the back of the crowd, said Scott paused the show a few times. The Associated Press reported the musician could be seen in a social media video stopping his performance to ask for help for a person in the audience: “Security, somebody help real quick.”

“I think he noticed people that were in distress or needed help, and he would stop the show and tell security ‘Hey, come help this person, get them out of here,’” he said.

Scott was scheduled to perform for 75 minutes, and he did despite the stops, Guerra said. It is not known if he was supposed to perform an encore, but Guerra said he felt like the show came to an “abrupt” end. Near the end, Scott brought fellow rapper Drake onstage, and Guerra said this “amped up the energy like crazy.”

“Anybody who’s been to a Travis Scott show knows that … the energy exchange between him and the crowd is really, it’s really electric. It’s really amped up, it’s very passionate and fervent,” Guerra said. “There’s mashing, he encourages people to — he calls his fans ‘ragers’ — so that kind of aggressive, high-pitched energy is, I think, a signature of his show.”

“In some ways, I think, it’s what people expect and what they go for,” Guerra added. “But it’s a precarious balance, because, when things like that start happening, it’s a domino effect.”