Today, Explained - Astroworld

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

How a music festival became a death trap, and what it would take for it never to happen again. Today’s show was produced by Haleema Shah and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Today's show is about the tragedy at Astroworld Festival in Houston. It's got some strong language and descriptions of some deadly scenes from this past weekend's concert. We will begin in a moment.

It's really hard to wrap your head around what happened at Astroworld this weekend, but it's even harder if you don't know anything about Travis Scott, so let's from Houston. He's got a baby with a Kardashian or a Jenner or whatever. He's one of the most popular rappers in the world. But as rappers go, he's pretty punk rock. He's got a real anti-authority penchant for gnarly mosh pits and chaos at his concerts, and that has gotten him in some trouble. Back at his 2015

Lollapalooza set, he encouraged fans to hop over barricades and rush the stage, leading a chant of, we want rage. That set lasted about five minutes before it got shut down. Astroworld Festival chaos. Earlier today, a stampede to get into the venue. Three people were hurt. That forced police to bring in extra officers for crowd control. At the last Astroworld in 2019, multiple fans were injured in a stampede, but that did not deter Travis Scott fans this time around. Footage of some of the chaos from Astroworld 2019

was used in the promotional video from Astroworld 2019 was used in the promotional video for Astroworld 2021. We want to show you what it looked like when the festival opened its doors today. So that's how things looked heading into the festival in Houston this past weekend. Houston police knew this was a tinderbox. Well, at the very least, we know that some public safety officials were, at least had it on their radar and were concerned. Sinjin Barnard-Smith reports on law enforcement at the Houston Chronicle. Chief Troy Finner, he's our police chief, he released a statement yesterday saying that he had met with Travis Scott and his head of security on Friday before the main event.

And he said that he was concerned about just the energy. And he said, I have never seen a time with more challenges facing citizens of all ages to include a global pandemic and social tension throughout the nation, and that he had asked Travis Scott and his team to work with HPD, that's the Houston Police Department, going into Astro Week and the festival. And almost as soon as this started, or even before there was music, there was chaos. There was a video all over social media at around 2 p.m. on Friday of, you know, hundreds of fans busting through security fencing and barriers trying to get into the Astroworld festival area. And some of these fans are trampling over other fans

and just continuing on. Like sprinting. Exactly. They weren't taking time to make sure people were okay that, you know, your fellow man was getting up on his feet and making it out of that crowd. Yeah. People pouring through this fencing and, like, you know, definite mayhem already. When does this actual concert begin, and when does it turn dangerous? The concert is underway by 8 o'clock or 8.30 or what have you.

At 9.06 p.m., Scott comes on stage. And you've got a crowd of 50,000 people, right? And so up to that point, there had been a lot of people, there had been a lot of enthusiasm, there had been several hundred people treated for various kind of injuries, right? But it hadn't seemed like completely out of control, right? Let's go! Yeah!

So around 9.15, the Houston Fire Chief is named Sam Pena. Chief Pena said that the crowd sort of began to compress towards the front of the stage. And that is sort of when things start to get really bad. 9-15 on is when you're seeing those videos of, like, the ambulance going through the crowd or, like, people falling out, people fainting, people getting chest compressions done on them

because they've gone unconscious and stopped breathing. As best we can tell at 9 30, that's when an ambulance was moving through the crowd. Travis Scott acknowledges the ambulance, stops performing, asks the crowd to make room. It's an ambulance in the car. People are fucking dying. I want to save somebody's life. That's the vice king. Who asked for this gun? I want to save them.

Who asked for this gun? And then immediately starts performing again. I want to make this motherfucking crowd shake, goddammit. Here we go. Eight minutes later, Houston fire officials declare a mass casualty incident. At that point is when you, I think, would reasonably expect the event to end. And from there, the concert continues for another 37 minutes. We need somebody to help him. Somebody pass out right here.

Oh, shit. Somebody pass out right here. No, no, no, don't touch him, don't touch him. And then Drake comes onto the stage. At 10.08, the show ends with goosebumps. I get those goosebumps every time! Everybody, I love y'all. Make your home safe. Good night! Do we have any idea how this concert went on after a, quote, mass casualty incident was reported?

I think this is the thing, it's so hard to wrap your head around. The one explanation that I've heard about in all of this is that officials called a mass casualty incident, but they were concerned about shutting it down right away because they were concerned that it might incite a riot. What do we know about those who died at this concert? On Monday, the Harris County medical examiner finally released the names of the eight victims. They ranged in age from 14 years old to 27 years old. These are the eight victims. The youngest, John Hilgert, was just 14, a student at Memorial High School.

And the oldest was 27-year-old Danish Bag from Dallas. He died saving his fiance. So there's a 14-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl, a 20-year-old, two 21-year-olds, two 23-year-olds, and a 27-year-old. You know, if you look at the video or you talk to concertgoers, it just seems like there just wasn't enough precautions to prevent this from happening. There are a lot of concerts that happen across the U.S. all the time, right? You don't normally hear about eight people getting crushed to death. So there are questions about the private security that Live Nation had and the troubling history that Live Nation has with these kinds of events. One of my colleagues wrote this very disturbing story about how there have been 200 deaths at Live Nation venues since 2006 and 750 very severe

injuries and a slew of lawsuits. So there are questions about the medical care provided by Live Nation and about security. The fire department and the police department, you know, they've answered a lot of questions so far, but, you know, we'll definitely be looking into like how they handled this situation. There's a criminal investigation. There's no one's been charged. No one's been convicted. But those are the entities that I would look at for answers. And Travis Scott is already being sued here, right? Yes, that's correct. So just a few days ago or in the last couple of days, we reported that at least 11 have been filed,

and that number is all but sure to grow. I know Travis Scott loves to have a fair dose of chaos at his shows, but these are his fans who died. This is his town that's hurting. How is he responding? Travis Scott has been posting these messages on social media where he appears pretty shooken up. I just want to send out prayers to the to the ones that was lost last night. We're actually working right now to identify the families

so we can help assist them through this tough time. His girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, also released a statement saying that they were broken and heartbroken and, you know, everything by what had happened and taking great pains to say that they had not realized how dangerous the event had become and weren't aware of the deaths or anything until after the set ended.

Any time I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know, I'll I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know, I'll stop the show and, you know, help them get the help they need, you know? Just recently, I saw news that Travis Scott was going to refund everyone who had attended Astroworld. I'm honestly just devastated, and I could never imagine anything like this

just happening. I'm gonna do everything I can to keep you guys updated and informed on what's going on. Love you all. What it would take to prevent this from ever happening again in a minute on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com. Ramp.com.

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I think the proper formal title is Professor Dr. G. Keith Still. I'm a visiting professor at the University of Suffolk in the UK. But Professor Dr. G. Keith Still isn't just a professor at the University of Suffolk in the UK. I'm a crowd scientist. I study the dynamics of crowds for crowd safety and crowd risk analysis. And when you look at your phone or, you know, your newspaper and you see a tragedy like what happened at Astroworld Festival this past weekend, what goes through your head? Oh no, not again. Immediately the feeling is this is preventable, it's predictable, these kind of incidents shouldn't happen. But we collect and study accidents from around the world.

And the only time that it's been quiet was during the COVID lockdown. As soon as the crowds come back up, we've seen two major disasters happen already. We begin this hour with breaking news from northern Israel, where the death toll has now risen to at least 44, after what appears to have been a stampede at a religious festival. Tanzanian police say at least 45 people had died during a stampede in Dar es Salaam on March 21 as mourners paid their last respects to the late president John Magufuli. These are the ones that result in fatalities. There are many, many more that result in personal injury lawsuit cases. Unfortunately, the DNA of these accidents is very similar. So this is the tragedy about the whole thing,

is that the similarities could be ironed out of the process. But there's so many of these major events are run by enthusiastic amateurs rather than professionally trained crowd safety and crowd risk experts. And you pointed to a few recent examples, but as far as, you know, rock concerts go, I think there was a Who concert in 1979 where several people died. More recently, a Pearl Jam concert in Denmark where several people died, right? There have been these sort of major casualty events at big shows before as well, right? Yes. And as you say, the casualty events are the ones that hit the headlines. But the number of people that are injured at events is significant.

And if you imagine a pyramid where the fatalities are at the top, then below that there's another tier, a much wider tier of injuries. Below that there's a much wider tier again of people that have been hurt but haven't reported it, haven't brought a lawsuit. And then below that there's unsafe practices. And the whole thing sits on a very shaky foundation as far as that's concerned. I guess the question then for you is, why does this keep happening? I think the simple answer is that people don't really understand crowd dynamics and crowd risk. And for the last 32 years, that's been my study.

Initially, I got caught in a crowd. I couldn't understand as a physicist, my background and my first degree is in physics, why the crowd was moving in a way which was unexpected. So imagine if you can an egg timer, you know, the old sand egg timers? Sure. Where the grains of sand move from the top to the bottom and the fastest flow is in the middle. Well, that's physics. Yeah.

And if you imagine now a crowd, the fastest flow is generally around the edges. So the models they were using at that time, 30 odd years ago, were all based on granular flow. And it's not that with crowds because crowds can make their mind up to move and are reacting to spaces around them. They're an interactive mass rather than a physics mass. Is what you're telling me, Keith, that essentially crowds are unpredictable?

Far from it. They're not only reasonably predictable, but you can shape behavior. To mitigate that risk, you just never allow the density to get that high. So identifying density is your key management issue. So we know the physics of crowd surges and crowd collapse. We know the physics of restrictive or constrictive asphyxia. What we need to do is prevent those conditions ever getting up to that threshold so there's a red line as far as crowd density is concerned once you know what that red line is you just never allow it to go above the red line and you're keeping it moderately safe there's always going to be a risk of somebody accidentally tripping over or somebody stepping on an ankle and some

injury what you're trying to do is minimize the risk of these surges. And in fact, you can almost eliminate the risk of surges if you do crowd monitoring and site design to prevent those accidents from ever happening in the first place. So what does that look like at like the Astroworld Festival with 50,000 fans? Does that mean you're breaking up the crowd? Does that mean you're putting in security to monitor the crowd in the pit? What does it mean practically? Well, you mentioned Roskilde, the Pearl Jam incident in Denmark. Yeah. The huge crowd at the Roskilde Open Air Summer Festival surged forward, crushing people against the stage.

Witnesses say the band repeatedly appealed to the crowd to move back. On the count of three, three steps back, please. One, two, three. Eight people were killed. 26 were injured, some seriously. What did Pearl Jam do after that tragedy? What they did was that they allocated separate pens, which were enclosed spaces. And you only allow X number of people in there. Now, they then may well go to the front, but those pens never reach that critical densities where the surges can be life-threatening. So it's just penning it up,

it's designing the front of stage barriers differently. Pit design, where the performer's going to be when he's moving around the stage, when they're doing the act, try to prevent any surging and pressure because people that are close will want to be closer. People that are forced to be further away cannot get any closer. So the psychology changes and the pressure drops off almost exponentially. So that kind of knowledge comes from the simulation and modeling and that filters into, well, how do we design better front of stage areas? I guess on some level, the rock world learned that lesson. But here's Travis Scott saying, you know, my pits are an intense atmosphere and the kids obviously love it. And up until this

incident, they wanted to be as intense as humanly possible. And that's the experience they're showing up for. Is it sort of impossible to have it both ways? Can we not have these wildly intense concert experiences and safety? There are ways of designing it so that you can moderate or mitigate those risks. I was doing a TV broadcast in Canada just an hour ago, is they showed the video footage from the 2005 Oasis concert where you see this massive surge and shockwave. Before we go any further, all you've got to do is anybody falls down, pick them up, because it's going to get fucking nuts. Now, OK, I don't know the actual specifics of the Travis Scott incident,

but Oasis had a very clear safety culture, that they had a high density, high energy crowd but the Gallagher brothers as soon as they see these sort of things they knew what the showstop procedure was they stopped the performance they started to communicate with the crowd yeah now listen everybody right

this is serious there's a crack in the barrier at the front right so they're going to have to get it sorted out before they're going to let us play so everyone's going to have to take a walk back, right? Listen, that's just the way it is. The barrier's busted. They're going to have to fix it or we can't do the gig, all right? There you go.

So, you know, mosh pits, similar sort of thing. It's just be aware of what's happening out here. Have good feedback from your security team and have a showstop, a calling process in play. Do you think ultimately the artist bears some responsibility here? Is this on Travis Scott on some level? It's a difficult question to answer directly because I'm seeing a number of conflicting reports.

In general, your performer's there to perform. The safety responsibilities are the organisers and the security team. You know the style of performer, you know the particular aspect of their crowd, you need to design and accommodate around it. Now in general, there are only maybe one or two individuals that have the authority to stop a show and that would be your event organiser or your head of security And that would be your event organizer or your head of security. These would be named individuals in the documents. And the process and procedure for them to make the decision, we need to stop the show, also needs to filter through

the entire security team. So, you know, a couple of ushers or security guys coming on stage and saying they've got a problem will not resonate with a performer as being an emergency the number of times you see performers are so caught up in their act of performance you know engaging with their audience and with the lighting it's almost impossible to know what's happening down there you rely on that feedback mechanisms so without knowing the specifics or if there was a show stop called or any details of that, a performer might be one of a Walmart on Black Friday or a Travis Scott concert or a football game, and you feel like this is getting out of control, how do you get yourself out of there if you're in the middle of the crowd? What do you do? Well, first and foremost, be aware of what high density looks like. And that's when people are physically so close together that they're touching on all sides.

Avoid those situations because whenever you're in that environment, there's always a risk of a trip, slip and fall in somebody falling on top of you and significant risk to life and limb. Second one is if you do find yourself in a surge, then the pressure releases as the crowd moves back. So you've got this forward and back movement

or sideways movement. Yep. Wait until you find that pressure out and then back, sideways, back, sideways, back, sideways. So you can zigzag your way out of the high-pressure environment. Huh. But it's recognizing the difference between being in a surge or being at the front of stage in a high-energy band, and this is just what we're going to be doing. So recognizing risk is one of those key factors. But people pack together and join themselves, a lot of high energy going on. You might not even recognize that as a risk until

it's too late. Well, Keith, thanks so much for helping us understand this tragedy and for encouraging us to second guess being in the middle of a large, unreliable crowd. Let's hope we never see an incident like this again. But I do believe the industry is going to have to have a wake-up call and start to put formally recognized, qualified safety managers to events. I think one of the big things that we see is that, well, take Fyre Festival as an example. Anybody can start a major event, but it takes a real professional to put on a safe event. Professor Dr. G. Keith still is a professor at the University of Suffolk in the UK.

Halima Shah and Hadi Mawagdi produced this episode in the US. Thank you.