How many people died or were injured at Astroworld music festival?

Travis Scott took the stage on November 5th, 2021 in the resurgence of his hometown’s yearly event, the Astroworld music festival. Encouraging the audience to “rage,” the crowd became unruly & chaotic. 50,000 people rushed to the stage to watch Scott perform, making the crowd dense & claustrophobic. 

Panic rushed over the crowd of young people as they began to gasp for air. Many began to faint and were even crowd surfed to medical tents. Concertgoers described a surge of people as inescapable, causing them to be scared for their lives.

Concert becomes deadly 

According to the New York Times, twenty-three-year-old Chris Leah described his experience in the crowd, “People were literally grabbing and pinching at my body trying to get up from the ground, I was fighting for my life; there was no way out.”

Eight people were pronounced dead at the Astroworld music festival. Organized by Live Nation & Travis Scott himself, he gave his condolences to the lives lost at the festival.

“I’m honestly just devastated,” Scott said as he repeatedly sighed and rubbed his forehead. “We’re actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time,” said Scott.

Crowd control disaster 

The Astroworld music festival in 2019 had been reported to have similar incidences of crowd surging & chaotic behavior. 

Although this year, things took a deadly turn as the Travis Scott fans became one of the most dangerous crowd-control disasters in the United States in years. 

As people were fighting their way out of mosh pits and gasping for air, the New York Times reported, “Mr. Scott continued playing through his set of music, urging the crowd on at times, at other times pausing to acknowledge that something appeared to be wrong, including when an ambulance entered the crowd around 9:30 p.m.”

The investigation 

Authorities are currently investigating the Astroworld music festival, hoping to clarify that there were no other factors that played a role in the deaths. Drugs, venue capacity, and security measures are all being taken into consideration as possible causes of death or preventable measures. 

According to CNN, “The investigation will cover ‘what caused, one, the issue of the crowd surge, and two, what prevented people from being able to escape that situation.’”

“We are certainly looking at all of the video footage, we are talking to witnesses, we are talking to event organizers,” Turner told CNN on Saturday. Many people in attendance took footage of the chaos with their phones, displaying the fear & panic that rushed throughout the uncontrollable crowd.

Lasting tragedy

According to the New York Times, “In the end, eight people died, ranging in age from 14 to 27, according to city officials. Hundreds more were treated for injuries at a field hospital at the concert venue, the NRG Park in Houston, or at local hospitals. Among those treated at a hospital was a 10-year-old child.”

What started out as a fun and music-loving event, the Astroworld music festival has now become both a warning and a lesson. Officials said they had taken greater precautions in comparison to the Astroworld music festival in 2019, but clearly, it wasn’t enough.  

Whether medical attention, crowd control, or drugs played a part in numerous young people losing their lives – the takeaway is that the injuries & death were preventable.