On Friday night, Travis Scott held his famous “Astroworld” festival, resulting in eight confirmed deaths and many more injured. One of the youngest deaths included a 14-year-old boy who attended the festival. The events that took place should have never happened and are completely on the event planners, the people who were not practicing concert etiquette, the people that came in without a ticket, security, Live Nation and Travis Scott himself.

Disturbing videos of the event circled Instagram and Twitter. Images included a person dancing on top of an ambulance, people passing out and getting crushed and several attendees lined up to perform CPR on fallen concert-goers. 

Concerts should be a safe space. I went to my first concert at 6 years old and attended my first concert alone at 13. The first festival I attended was when I was 16. I’ve gone to numerous shows of several different sizes in many different states and never once did I imagine not making it home. I’ve probably gone to dozens of shows and never once did I feel like I was going to die or be crushed.

During several of the shows I have been to, artists have stopped to make sure the crowd was okay. I have seen artists asking people to take a step back and spread out more. I have even been to shows where the band has thrown water bottles to people on balconies to make sure they were staying hydrated. 

The people that passed Friday were young. This is a tragedy and people need to stop pushing off accountability on to  the victims for going to the event. Too many people are excusing the events of Friday.

Make no mistake. This is not me frowning on mosh pits or crowd surfing and having fun at concerts. I have been to several shows where moshing and crowd surfing was a huge part of it and for many genres of music it is a huge part of the show. However, at many of those events there is an understanding of protection. If someone fell, the crowd would pick them back up, not trample them to death. If someone was to get hurt badly enough, the security and medical staff would be competent enough to help. 

It is one thing to encourage crowds to go crazy and have fun. However, it is completely different to encourage your fans to have no regard for concert security. Scott has been arrested twice for encouraging fans to crowd into spaces and perform reckless acts like stage-diving during his performances. Being reckless with people’s lives is not acceptable and should not be part of a concert. 

I understand that Scott’s intention was probably not to have his fans die. I think you would have to be a special type of evil to want death at your shows, and I don’t want to believe that someone so mainstream would have those intentions. However when you have a disregard for safety over and over, that’s what happens. 

A show should never be deemed a “mass casualty” event. It’s Scott’s behavior at the shows and his encouraging fans to act this way that make him accountable, not to mention his image and his name being tied to the event. 

When it gets to the point that people are crowd surfing limp unconscious bodies, there is a real problem. You are sick in the head to say that this is just how the Travis Scott shows are or that it is not at all his fault. People were suffering from crowd crush and screaming for help and chanting to stop the show. There are also videos of a woman trying to ask the camera men to stop. 

I found the events that took place at Astroworld incredibly disturbing. The negligence that took place on Friday is unacceptable. Everyone involved should be held accountable. I think the steps that Travis Scott has taken to refund attendees tickets and pay for the funerals of the victims who passed are the bare minimum. He should have to pay funeral expenses and refund EVERYONE who was there for putting them in danger. No one should have died at that concert. 

I think providing mental health resources for those who were in attendance is also fairly bare minimum. No matter how much Travis Scott and others involved who were at fault try to solve these issues, eight lives were lost. Many people were injured, including a nine year old who is in a coma in the ICU. I don’t think that the damage will ever be reversed. No matter how hard Travis Scott tries to correct the events that took place, it will never be enough. The least we can do is hold him accountable for his actions.

Categories: Opinion