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A visitor at the memorial outside the canceled Astroworld festival at NRG Park on Nov. 7. Fans set up this memorial to pay tribute to those who lost their lives that night.

   On Nov. 5, 2021 Travis Scott held his festival, “Astroworld”, in his hometown of Houston Texas. Several other artists performed at this event  including SZA, Roddy Rich, Don Toliver and more. This event turned into one of the worst nights in some of the festival goers life. Due to the overpopulation of the festival, as Travis was taking the stage every person in attendance, which is said to be 50,000, squished together to watch Scott perform. This caused eight casualties that night, hundreds left injured and thousands scarred. 

   Astroworld has been a  huge part of Scott’s brand over the years. The first Astroworld was held in 2018, to celebrate his album release. This festival includes carnival rides, roller coasters, different vendors and live music. This was the third Astroworld ever held, and it will definitely be one to remember. This year, all of the guest artists performed on a smaller stage, while the stage Scott was performing at was bigger and in a different location within the festival. People enjoyed the artists’ music all day, but as the time came closer for Scott to go on, more and more people started crowding the stage. This was a general admission event, and only standing room was provided. The clock was winding down for Scott to take the stage, this is when the crowd surge happened. 

   About two minutes into the set people started to be packed like sardines. Attendees of the event have said once you were positioned that’s how you were staying. A couple more songs into his set people started losing consciousness and falling to the floor. These are now known as the “sinkholes” that occurred. People were passing out in large groups one falling on top of the other. Concert goers started screaming for help. Panic throughout the crowd broke out, still some others only focused on the performer. People were getting trampled and no help seemed to be coming their way. Security seemed to be very slim at the event, along with medical professionals and medical equipment. Once backup was called in, they started to work on taking care of the people, that at this point had been passed out for 10-15 minutes, and turning black and blue. 

   After police declared the event a “mass casualty” event at around 9:30 p.m., Scott continued to perform until 10:15 p.m.. The uninjured concert goers made the medic’s job harder than it needed to be, some started dancing on top of the emergency vehicles and blocking their way so they couldn’t make it through the crowd. 

   There are clips showing that Scott knew something was wrong with his fans, and stopped the show to get security for them. That may be seen as a good thing, but as soon as security got to the passed out person, he immediately started performing again. It is said Scott did not know the weight of what happened until he was at Drake’s afterparty at Dave and Busters Sports Bar in Houston. Shortly after he heard the news, it is said he left the party. 

   Since the event, Scott has posted via Instagram an apology about the tragedies that happened during his festival. The casualties of this event were aged 14-27, Scott has offered to pay all funeral expenses and hospital bills for the people and families affected.  Scott and Drake are currently facing 68 people suing them for the “inciting mayhem” at the festival. Houston police continue to investigate different leads to figure out what exactly caused this.