“Any time I could make out, you know, anything that’s going on, you know, I just stopped my show and, you know, helped them get the help they need,” Scott says in the video.įootage from the concert’s live stream also showed Scott pausing his performance and looking on in apparent confusion as an ambulance pulled into the crowd before finishing the concert.Ĭoncertgoers Nick Johnson and Angel Rodriguez told CNN Scott stopped the show on at least three occasions to ask for help for those in the crowd. Scott maintains he had no idea about the severity of what was happening in the crowd as he continued his set, telling fans in an Instagram video Saturday night he is “devastated” by what happened. I’ve never seen someone die in front of my eyes. “This year’s festival will be stuck with me forever. “Travis Scott would have a short time in between songs, and we would scream our vocal cords out, so someone could hear us but nobody did,” Tellez said. 'This was not a concert, this was a fight for survival' Jeffrey Schmidt and Casey Wagner at Astroworld. I spent at least 15 minutes just getting pushed around due to mosh pits or simply because people were ‘raging,’” Sierra said.ĩ:30 p.m.: Officials first receive reports of people falling injured in the crowd, according to Peña, and said they “requested additional resources to the scene.”įinner said Saturday at a press conference “our people stepped up and immediately went to the producers and told them, ‘Hey, people are going down.’” “I truly thought that if I fell it would’ve been the end of me. Sarai Sierra, who went to the festival to celebrate her birthday, said she saw multiple people who could not breathe after Scott appeared on stage. When Travis came out performing his first song, I witnessed people passing out next to me,” TK Tellez said. “The crowd became tighter and tighter, and at that point it was hard to breathe. The crowd surged forward as the show began, according to one concertgoer. Just after 9 p.m.: Scott took the stage to begin his set. People started to pass out and fall to the ground,” Schmidt told CNN. “Little did we know, all hell was about to break loose. As the timer got closer to coming down to zero, it just – it got worse and worse,” Eskins said.Ĭoncertgoer Jeffrey Schmidt said breathing became more difficult as the countdown moved closer to zero, as he and his friend decided to try and get out of the crowd. “And all of a sudden, people compressed up against each other and were pushing forward and backward. Central Time: Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse attending the show, told CNN’s Christi Paul a countdown timer began around 30 minutes before Scott was set to appear on stage. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner visited rapper Travis Scott, the headliner of the festival who also acted as an event organizer, before his set to express “concerns about the energy in the crowd,” according to reporting from The New York Times citing a source familiar with the chief’s account.ĬNN has reached out to Houston police and representatives for Travis Scott for comment on The New York Times report.īefore 9 p.m. “It’s obvious that if they did, they weren’t enough,” Peña responded. “We do know that we had people jump the fence,” and at least one person was injured in the afternoon rush, Peña said.ĬNN asked Peña whether the instance led to special precautions at this year’s event. Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told CNN he didn’t know what caused the rush, either. The video showed some people helping a few others up. At his 2015 Lollapalooza performance, he instructed fans to bypass security barricades, saying “middle finger up to security right now,” and leading a “we want rage” chant.'Some kind of crowd surge': Crowds seen pushing through entrances earlier Scott has also been arrested on multiple occasions for reportedly encouraging his audience to overwhelm security. In 2017, Scott provoked fans to push another audience member, Kyle Green, over a balcony railing at Manhattan’s Terminal 5, leaving him partially paralyzed. The rapper has a reputation for anarchy he even refers to his hardcore supporters as “ragers.” His performance at Astroworld in 2019 saw three people hospitalized after being trampled when the gates opened. Manuel Souza, one of the concertgoers taking legal action, even called the event “preventable and predictable,” pointing out the festival’s lack of safety measures and Scott’s past encouragement of raging crowds. The news arrives after Scott, fellow Astroworld performer Drake, and multiple festival organizers were named in lawsuits filed by attendees.
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