Chapman community reacts to tragedy at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival
A crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Nov. 5 Astroworld Festival left hundreds injured and at least 10 people dead. WikiCommons
Trigger warning: violence, death
On Friday, Nov. 5 in Houston, Texas, Travis Scott’s performance at his Astroworld festival devolved into chaos. As Scott continued singing on stage, an overwhelming crowd surge injured hundreds of people and killed at least 10 individuals, including a nine-year-old boy.
With fans numbering over 50,000, there’s no clear moment that triggered the crowd surge. The Houston Police Department and the FBI are jointly investigating if the tragedy was a product of negligence from security and event crew. While video documentation of the tragedy is abundant, the evidence does not yet point to a single entity at fault.
“One of the things that can be very difficult for people to come to terms with in a situation like this, is it may be no one's fault,” said Diane Klein, a professor in Chapman’s Fowler School of Law. “There's good reason to think literally, not one person intended this to happen.”
But in the aftermath of the tragedy, Live Nation, the entertainment company in charge of producing the event, has been targeted with criticism for allowing the concert to go on after initial injury reports. Travis Scott has also come under fire for failing to stop the show from the stage.
At least 46 lawsuits have already been filed in connection to the event. Some have been against Scott, others against Live Nation, and even some against Drake, who also organized and performed at the festival. This number is expected to rise and comprises mostly civil suits.
People have taken to social media to share videos of celebrities including Adele, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, and Linkin Park, among others, pausing concerts upon noticing injury in the crowd.
Giovanna Sestito, a junior strategic and corporate communications major, is a concert aficionado and has seen her fair share of crowded pits. She told The Panther she hopes production companies and artists take more concrete action to prevent tragedies like these in the future.
“I feel the most at home when I'm at concerts,” Sestito said. “I'm surrounded by all these people who love and have the same admiration for these artists. It's so heartbreaking to hear that tragedies happen at concerts because that has to take a toll on anyone who was there — emotionally and mentally.”
According to Klein,the legal aftermath for a situation like this is complicated, even in terms of how to file suits.
“Should each and every injured plaintiff be bringing their own case?” Klein said. “Who are the right defendants in this case? Some people are suing, for example, just the venue, other people are suing the venue and the event promoter, other people are suing the venue, the event promoter and the performers who were on stage.”
Ultimately, the legal precedent of calls for manslaughter charges against Scott is unclear, Klein said, and she thinks the likelihood of a trial is low.
“It is possible to be criminally responsible for the death of another person without intending it,” Klein said. “The worst case against Travis Scott would be that he knew and saw this was happening but did nothing to stop it. I'm not sure I think this is that situation, based on the evidence that's out there in the public; the people involved would have had to know much more than any evidence currently suggests that they did.”
Sestito is among those who feel Scott must have been aware of the chaos on some level and should have done more to stop it.
“He should be held accountable,” Sestito said. “There were flashing lights in the crowd, you see people chanting ‘Stop the show,’ and then people run up to him on stage and tap him. There’s all of these videos of the way that people were trying to get him to stop, and he wasn't stopping. It's part of the artist’s responsibility to make sure that their fans are safe, comfortable and feeling okay.”
Pri Jain, a senior business administration major, agrees. As a lover of hip-hop concerts in particular, he told The Panther he noted the fine line between exciting a crowd and inciting chaos.
“There should be that energy where there are people just moshing, because that's a huge part of hip-hop concerts,” Jain said. “But it’s about balancing that with the safety aspect and making sure people are okay.”
Jain said he anticipates a change in safety protocols for similar concerts and festivals going forward, but he worries the tragedy will provoke criticism of hip-hop as a genre.
“There's going to be a ripple effect throughout the hip-hop industry,” Jain said. “Hip-hop was already viewed as an aggressive genre. So, the fact that this is actually happening at a concert, it just gives those critics more justification to be like, ‘Oh, this (violence) is actually what hip-hop is.’”
Jain said while these stereotypes ignore the many communal and motivational elements of hip-hop, they are at times played into through the way certain artists market themselves.
“The problem is that for a lot of these artists, like Travis Scott or DaBaby, inciting violence is almost a part of their brand image,” Jain said. “Young people are very easily influenced, so the artists have a lot more power than they think. It only takes one time for something like this to happen for now like the entire industry to change its direction.”