Nine dead after Astroworld festival

Travis Scott is an artist that has gained much attention recently. In response to his announcement of a new music release on November 5 along with his upcoming festival, his fans went crazy. This led to the deaths of several people at the festival.

Astroworld is a music festival that was founded by Travis Scott, based in Houston, Texas. The festival was first launched in 2018 with the release of the corresponding album. The festival was known to be high energy and high octane, and it continued to be held annually, only stopping in 2020 due to COVID-19. This year, it returned.

Astroworld 2021 had a rocky start. Over 100,000 tickets to the festival were sold, but when the gates opened, many people broke into the festival, exceeding the recommended limit of people in the festival grounds.

Due to the high attendance and a series of druggings that took place during the final set on the first day, a large surge of people moving towards the stage ended the lives of eight festival-goers, sending six more into cardiac arrest and injuring more than 300 others. One of the people to die was 14 years old. Another, Bharti Shahani, died several days later after being hospitalized. 

In response to the crisis, the second day of the festival was canceled and ambulances were called for those injured.

Travis Scott, who was performing at the moment of the surge, has taken a lot of heat for his role in the incident. Before his set began, he was informed by Houston police that the festival was beyond capacity and was warned about the potential dangers. During the set, he stopped several times to allow the ambulances to get through the crowd, but still continued performing with high energy. Currently, he is facing over 40 different lawsuits, with family members of those who died holding him responsible. In response, Scott has made several public apologies and has committed to covering costs for the funerals of those that died, as well as the hospital bills for both the mental and physical health of the surviving victims of the stampede.

By TJ Pittenger