Astroworld and the responsibility of crowd safety

The tragedy at a Houston festival reminded some concertgoers of previous situations where performers stepped in to help members of the audience, writes Lucy Anna Gray

Travis Scott says that pyrotechnics and other paraphernalia onstage prevented him from being able to see what was unfolding (Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

Eight people died and more are still fighting for their lives after the tragedy at Astroworld, Travis Scott’s festival in Houston. Footage from the event show a crowd surge that left many attendees crushed and medical teams struggling to get to those in need.

Since the incident unfolded, social media has been awash with attendees sharing harrowing experiences from the concert. There has also been an uptick in people sharing older footage from other artists interrupting performances when they spotted signs of trouble. Billie Eilish calling out security at one of her concerts in September, interrupting her performance to ask: “Security, why aren’t you paying attention? Like, for real,” after a fan collapsed is one example. Adele stopping mid-performance when someone appeared to have fainted and not resuming until she had confirmation that they were being assisted is another. Even older footage resurfaced of Kurt Cobain pausing a Nirvana show to help a fan. While sharing such footage, people have been questioning whether Travis Scott might have been able to avert tragedy at Astroworld if he had intervened in a similar way instead of continuing to perform.

On Tuesday, Houston’s fire chief said Scott and the organisers of Astroworld should have stopped the show when they realised people were in danger. Samuel Pena told NBC’s Today show: “The artist, if he notices something that’s going on, he can certainly pause that performance, turn on the lights and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to continue until this thing is resolved.’”