“On Friday (5 November), at least 50,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas, for rapper Travis Scott’s two day Astroworld festival, which would turn out to be one of the deadliest music events in US history” (National World).
Photo By JULIAN BAJSEL
On the evening of November 5, 2021, the Astroworld Festival began. With the festival tickets being sold out and many top artists, including Travis Scott, performing, the evening attracted an audience of 50,000 people anticipating an exciting night. Earlier that day, concerns about overcrowding were raised due to the amount of people hopping turnstiles and fences in order to attend the sold-out festival, but the concerns were disregarded and the festival continued despite being past max capacity.
When the headliner’s—Travis Scott—time was approaching, the festival started to get out of hand. As a timer ticked down from 30 seconds for Travis Scott’s performance to start, the crowd started pushing towards the stage creating little room to move. As everybody got pushed closer and closer together, the people at the front had nowhere to escape to and started to get crushed. The singer continued on, and the situation worsened.
The crowd surged forward, causing everyone to be packed so tightly together that they could not move, and many could not breathe. Many recall that when raising their arms, it was impossible to put them back down. At 9:39pm, 30 minutes into the performance, people began to collapse.
The show became dangerous and surreal for everyone there. The medics were overwhelmed with the amount of people fainting and being trampled. “Injuries mounted so quickly that medical staff were overwhelmed” (Latimes).
“At this time the show’s promoter agreed to halt the performance, but Scott continued to complete his set until 10:15 pm” (National world). During the show, the crowd chanted, “Stop the show! Stop the show!” and many people were doing the most they could to get Scott to end the performance. It was said that the performance went on for an hour after the first signs of distress.
The concertgoers described this night to be “pure chaos.” One person stated that “It was... heartbreaking and tragic for everyone in that area,’ he said. ‘...You could see the fear in their eyes because they wanted to escape from that situation” (CNN). Many people have been injured from this tragedy and at least eight died. A 9 year old is still in the hospital after being severly hurt, and at this moment he is in a medically induced coma (CNN).
Many people called Travis Scott’s apology a “joke” and “fake,” due to him “apologizing” in an instagram story. Travis Scott and the organizers of the festival have reportedly been filed with at least 18 lawsuits.
Many stories have been shared and gone viral through social media, especially TikTok. Some even went so far that friends and family members found out they died through footage shared. Videos are still being created suggesting conspiracy theories about what happened at this festival, including the idea that the performance was a satanic ritual.
If you would like to read more about the Astroworld Festival and the topics surrounding the crowd surge, updates on what happened, TikTok claims, etc., view these articles:
More Articles of what happened: https://www.nationalworld.com/culture/music/what-happened-at-astroworld-2021-victims-named-after-travis-scott-festival-crowd-surge-causes-eight-deaths-3448959
Updates on the tragedy: https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/astroworld-houston-crowd-surge-travis-scott-11-08-21/index.html
More info about the medics and security: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-09/astroworld-organizers-had-extensive-medical-security-plans-ddid-they-follow-them
The victims from Astroworld:
TikTok and the conspiracies: