All about the tragic crowd surge that caused deaths at Travis Scott's Concert at Astroworld

It is no news that thousands of people make it certain to never miss the opportunity of seeing their favourite artists perform live. The typical expected experience of watching your idol perform in your presence is one filled with joy and excitement from the beginning to the end. However, this is not always the case. Travis Scott's concert on November 5th,2021 took place in Houston’s Astroworld NRG Park Stadium and left 8 attendees dead (the youngest being only 14) and many injured (the youngest being only 10).

Investigated attendees of the concert explained that as soon as Scott appeared on stage, the packed crowd of an estimated 50,000 people started pushing with full force and pressure in the same direction, all at once. Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña explained that the crowd “began to compress towards the front of the stage,” which triggered panic and caused some injuries. Then “people began to fall out, become unconscious, and this created additional panic”. (Liam Cole. News Nation, 2021)

This additional panic caused more pushing and pressure, which in turn caused more injury and sadly cost the lives of those who were badly crushed and already on the verge.

Although investigators are still trying to find the cause of the panic and are uncertain if there was an intruder in the audience or simply a high level of excitement for the performer, a lot of the attendees, witnesses, and injured victims took to social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram to express their disturbance and disappointment towards the way the situation was handled.

These attendees, witnesses, and injured victims stated that they were disturbed by:

• How terrifying and traumatizing the entire experience.

• The Concert continued even after people from the audience went on stage crying and screaming that people were dying. Some even uploaded footage of a young lady climbing the ladder to the stage, doing just that.

• The lack of medics at the concert to tend to those in need.

• Medics being ill trained.

Scott and his partner Kylie Jenner took to Instagram the following day uploading a message on their stories sharing condolences to the deceased. They also explained that they were not aware of anyone dying until reports were out or else they would have canceled the concert immediately.

Although the stars addressed what was being said, the audience continues to stand firm in their claims.

Incidents like this have been occurring since as early as the 1970’s. Just to list a few, in 1979, 11 people died in a scramble to attend The Who’s concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Hillsborough Soccer Stadium in England, people were crushed in 1989, killing nearly 100 people; in 2015, a clash of two crowds during a pilgrimage to Mecca killed more than 2,400 people. (Fresno. California News Times, 2021)

Since more and more people are leaving their homes due to growing freedom from the pandemic, it is not a surprise that these risks are high due to these large crowds. It is up to the authorities, performers, and organizers of these concerts to ensure the safety of their audiences.

How can we reduce more incidents like these from happening in the future?

Concert crew members are responsible for incidents caused by poor management. What can they possibly do? It comes down to the two Ps: Proper Planning & Preparation.

• Know your audience so that you know what to expect. This is the first step to PPP.

• Ensure that there are enough members for each staff in each department considering the size of your audience. Stage crew, emergency crew, medics crew, audience/crowd management crew, security crew etc.

• There should be a well-educated emergency staff and plan for every possible emergency. A fire, change in weather, imposter, over-excitement etc.

• These stadiums should be built in a way that the audience will not have to be in the same place to see the performer. There should be other available ways, such as stands and TV’s so that the audience can have the best view without having to rush to the front of the stage. Making this mandatory and having a crew direct the attendees to various sectioned locations will be even more effective.

• Having these separate venues and locations are also useful for any form of escort due to any emergency.

• Having a signal-crew to notify and provide attendees with signal clue tools will ensure that the concert committee is fully aware when there is an issue, and the concert should be immediately put on hold.

• Notifying the audience of what action to take when these issues arise prior to the beginning of the concert, will reduce any unwanted reactions.

• Once we have accomplished PPP, we should have a higher chance of successfully handling these concert unfortunes.

Do you have anything else to add to the PPP list to ensure sufficient safety of the audience at these concerts? Great! It is people like you who make the world a better place.

Works Cited

Fresno. (2021, November 7). Astroworld 2021: What is a crowd surge? crushing deaths during Travis Scott set added to long list of similar tragedies. California News Times. Retrieved November 8, 2021.

Liam Cole. (2021, November 6). Crowd Surge Kills At Least 8 During Travis Scott Set at Astroworld Music Festival. News Nation USA. Retrieved November 8, 2021.