On November 5 an Astroworld concert by Travis Scott turned deadly as many concertgoers made the race to see Scott fatal. Scott founded Astroworld in 2018 when his album Astroworld came out. This festival showcases many other featured artists, but the chaos started when Scott entered the stage. This isn’t the first time chaos ensued during. In 2019 three people were trampled and sent to the hospital with broken limbs. After the trampling, everything proceeded as usual without any regard for their person.

That day the venue had sold out, with about 50,000 people, packing the concert to the bone. It should also be noted that non-ticket holders breached the event, so the exact number of concertgoers is unsure. Iman (@imanbtw) on TikTok recorded two videos about the event, where she detailed seeing people getting in without tickets. In the first video, she said the security guards did not check her COVID vaccination card and they did not properly search bags. The guard even stated they were only there to ensure no one sold their tickets. 

Seanna Faith, a concertgoer, posted a statement to her Instagram (@seannafaith) on November 6 detailing the events that followed. The crowd was packed. Faith stated people began to drown as the first song started. She said you could only see the person in front of you, so the rush to get to the front became deadly. From all the people, the air was hot and thick. Faith called it “a Jenga tower” once one person fell, multiple people fell and she watched as their bodies were trampled.

One video by Dieg (@dieghtx30) on TikTok shows him struggling in the crowd as a plethora of people pushes against him. Repeatedly in the video, there are shouts of “Someone’s gonna die!” from either Dieg or another concertgoer.

One person described the feeling of being continuously pinched and grabbed at from all angles as others tried to escape the ground. Every witness describes it as a fight for their life. Once it escalated, no one thought about Scott and his performance. 

This careless concert caused the death of 9 people, their ages ranged from 10 to 27. Shahani, one of the victims of Scott’s performance, was on a ventilator with no brain activity before she passed. Authorities are now looking into the deaths to see if they were only caused by trampling or pills suspected to be laced with fentanyl. 

During this entire time, unbeknownst to him, Scott still performed. Was he blind to the situation or was he simply not wanting to see it? Scott at one point did pause and acknowledged the fact an ambulance had entered the concert, but not once did he stop the concert entirely.

This also is not the first time that Scott has done something careless that has resulted in injuries. At a concert of his, Scott urged one person atop a balcony to jump. He said, “Jump, you won’t.” The man did in fact jump and it left him paralyzed.

After this incident, Scott posted to his Instagram story an apology video. 

“… my fans really mean the world to me and I’ll always just really wanna leave them with a positive experience. And anytime I can make out anything that’s going on … I just stop the show … help them get the help they need.” This does not seem to be the case. 

Countless other celebrities have stopped their performance, in bigger concerts than his, to help if someone was in need. 

Scott goes on to say, “We’ve been working closely … with everyone to try to get to the bottom of this,” The situation seems to be cut and dry from a bird’s eye view. Scott and his team were severely underprepared with their security and their venue, and it came back to bite them. 

Scott seems to be ignoring the continuous amount of backlash he’s received on his social media accounts. The tweets against Scott are brash and angry, especially towards his apology. It sounded fake to most. During the video Scott rubbed his head and sighed loudly, to try and get sympathy out of the crowd watching, to show how much the incident had impacted him. The worst part was Scott sat there a minute before searching for the black and white filter to make it seem even more depressing than the actual apology was. 

Kylie Jenner, Scott’s girlfriend, posted a stilted apology to her Instagram story. In the story, she claimed the pair did not know about the deaths until the news came out. Many feel Jenner’s reaction and handling of the event was inappropriate towards the victims and the many people who attended Astroworld. 

Now 18 lawsuits have been filed against Scott for the, as people have called it, a death trap. One includes a $750 million suit. And it seems well deserved.