On Nov. 5th, Travis Scott’s annual Astroworld festival took place in his hometown of Houston at NRG Park. What was supposed to be a fun and exciting event took a turn to tragedy.
Scott has received severe backlash and blame for his handling of the situation, but is it fair? According to ABC News, the chaos began on the morning of the festival when festival-goers ran past security checkpoints to get to the venue, jumping fences, and tearing down barricades to get in. Hours later when Scott’s set began at 9 p.m. fans are seen on video be rushing the stage while pushing and shoving to get closer. Some fans passed out because of the distress, Scott paused the show for a bit because of a particular fan who had passed out near him, “ Hol(d), hol(d)…get somebody (to) help him, somebody passed out right here” said Scott in a video taken by a fan, he then resumed the show when he got confirmation that the fan was okay. Minutes later the medical staff responded to another fan in the reserved section who was lying unconscious, which led to the viral video of Seanna Faith McCarty, the woman who told the cameraman to tell the “La Flame” rhymer to stop the show, in which viewers interpreted that he ignored her. This is when more fans started to trample people to the front of the stage as Houston police and fire department received calls of “mass casualties” of concertgoers being crushed and trampled. When Travis finished the show, his attorney Edwin F McPherson claimed his client “did not know what was happening (trampling) in the crowd during the concert.” A confirmed 300 people were treated by medical staff, 25 were transported to the hospital, and 10 died either at the event or later from their injuries. The youngest victim was nine-year-old Ezra Blount.
In the wake of the tragedy, music fans are evaluating their perceptions of Scott and festivals.
“t’s sad …when I first [saw] videos about it looked scary, everybody was squished together and I think Travis could have acknowledged that.,” said Delta student Jeanette Baez. “I believe he (Travis) deserves a lot of blame.”
Former Delta Student and Rap enthusiast Travis James Timbreza shared a similar but moderate take on the situation. “What happened at the Astroworld tour was honestly unacceptable and I’m still in shock … Travis Scott should be held accountable but so should everybody else coordinating the event,” he said.
Public blame has been levied on Scott solely though, which is ridiculous. Scott doesn’t deserve all of the blame. Months before the festival took place, Scott tweeted in a now-deleted tweet in support of fans sneaking into festivals and concerts saying “NAW AND WE STILL SNEAKING THE WILD ONES IN.!!!!!” which could have given some of his bizarre-thinking fans ideas to actually take the Tweet seriously and cause destruction before and during the festival, which does fall on Scott for instigating the cause. However, he shouldn’t be held responsible for the blood of those deaths caused by tramplings because in no way did he say or imply to the public to trample people and kill them just for their selfish desires to be closer to the stage. Scott also doesn’t deserve to be criticized for pausing the show multiple times and continuing it rather than stopping it, could’ve he handled it better? Yes, he could have asked and gotten more information about the crowd situation.
However, Scott and his attorney said the rap artist wasn’t aware of the tramplings but just of people fainting. How many concerts and festivals have people passed out at? Isn’t this a normal occurrence? Michael Jackson and The Beatles are notorious for their fans passing out and fainting during their performances and nobody complains they should have stopped the show. Why should they now to Travis? Now, some artists have stopped shows when fans have fainted like Adele who in a concert in 2011 stopped her show at the Hammersmith Apollo so that doctors could assist the fan. Some people also find it hard to believe how Scott didn’t notice the tramplings. Scott was on a pretty high stage looking down to a crowd of 50,000 people at night with dimmed lights, I don’t believe anybody can really notice what is going on unless he is informed by security or officials who can actually approach and inform him.
Finally, the Majority of the blame should be placed on the concertgoers and fans who caused the injuries/killings and the security. The concertgoers because they physically committed the crimes, they are thinking human beings that can understand the severity of the situations they were in and they still proceeded to do it. Security because it is their job and responsibility to de-escalate situations like these when they occur and listen to the people who are asking for help, not ignore them so they can inform the performer of what is happening so they could handle it accordingly and they failed to do so.
