The Astroworld Tragedy's Impact on the Concert Experience

Written by Sarah Bores | Designed by Anvitha Nekkanti | Graphics by Tamar Ponte

How live music, artist engagement with audiences, and criticism of musicians has changed in the aftermath of Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival.

Ten lives lost. Hundreds injured. Thousands stomped on, crushed, and unable to breathe. In the year since the mass casualty event that was Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, the concert experience has drastically changed.

The festival of over 50,000 eager fans quickly got out of control as at least 200 people surged through checkpoints to enter the festival without tickets. Thousands rushed the stage, unconscious bodies fell to the ground, and the concert still continued. For 37 minutes, Travis Scott continued to play after Houston authorities declared it a mass casualty event and even completed his entire set. The staff working the festival were unable to control the crowd, lacked adequate medical personnel and security, and had no passageway for ambulances to get through the seas of people. The crowd got so rowdy that people even climbed on top of medical vehicles and were lifting unconscious bodies up to be crowd-surfed away.

This “raging” of fans, also seen in the music industry in forms of moshing and stage diving, has long been encouraged by Scott. The rapper has been arrested and accused of inciting riots at his concerts on two other occasions. At Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, Scott’s set was cut off five minutes in after he encouraged the crowd to rush the barricades, flip off the security team and chant, “We want rage.”

This situation resulted in a stampede and numerous injuries. In 2017, Scott was once again arrested for inciting a riot at a performance in Arkansas when he told fans to rush the stage and bypass the security. Following the incident, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct and paid a fine of $7,465.31.

While who exactly is to blame for the absolute chaos is uncertain, it is clear that a combination of inadequate security and event coordination by Live Nation, the encouragement of raging from Scott himself, and overall unawareness of the severity of the situation did not lend itself to a safe or controlled environment. Some have suggested that due to the pandemic, many of the highly trained security staff that usually work at large events were forced to retrain into other fields in search of work, consequently leading to venues settling for less-qualified and untrained security personnel. Additionally, the event was the first major music festival in Houston since the lockdown which may have played a part in the intensity of the crowd.

This tragic event significantly impacted the culture of concerts, with regard to both the organization of events and artist engagement and communication with their audiences. Stopping a concert to ensure everyone is safe, prevent crowd surges, and to allow medical personnel to get through has grown increasingly common following Astroworld, with artists such as Billie Eilish and Harry Styles both repeatedly stopping their shows at the first signs of anything going wrong. Eilish has been praised as being one of the first musicians to react, in one instance stopping to get an inhaler for a fan. In July of this year, Adele stopped her show in Hyde Park four separate times in order to help fans that were overheating. Doja Cat waited five minutes for security to resolve and deescalate a situation at Lollapalooza Argentina. This awareness and ability to quickly react and solve potentially dangerous situations has created a new expectation of safety among fans and changed the industry when it comes to live performances. Steve Allen, a head of the Consultancy Organization Crowd Safety and tour manager for Led Zeppelin and Red Hot Chili Peppers, said he guarantees that since Astroworld, “management companies are saying to their artists: if you see this happening, do not in any circumstance incite the crowd;” going on to explain that failing to realize the situation or stop the show when being asked to could be the end of their careers.

In addition to changes in the culture and conduct of live music events by artists, security and police are using the tragedy at Astroworld as a way to inform improvements that need to be made for the future. Peter Elidias, a former law enforcement official, explained how Astroworld will be a case study for years to come of what happens when an event goes bad, and that lessons learned from the event will be “incorporated into future planning across the country.” Changes include stronger presence of emergency response personnel and law enforcement in the planning of live music events, as well as organizers taking into consideration previous performances of entertainer’s and the type of crowd coming to the event.

Following Astroworld, a heightened sense of vigilance and responsibility has been put on artists to uphold, placing more of a liability on musicians than the management companies themselves. According to an investigation by the Houston Chronicle, events by Live Nation, the organizer of the Astroworld Festival, have been linked to over 750 injuries and over 200 deaths since 2006. While some artists such as Travis Scott could be to blame when it comes to encouraging dangerous behavior, expecting all artists to be able to adequately ensure security and safety at all times throughout their show could be asking too much. Instead, improved security from organizers such as Live Nation must be demanded. We should encourage a heightened awareness of artists to realize if an audience member needs help, but then provide them with a system to efficiently connect trained personnel to addressing the situation.