Astroworld Disaster

[TorrieS]

'This was not a concert, this was a fight for survival' | CNN

Concertgoers described the event as traumatizing, with many witnesses saying they saw lifeless bodies being trampled amidst the chaos.

www.cnn.com

So I'm sure everyone has heard of the Travis Scott concert this past weekend where at least 8 people died due to crowd surge. Other than responding quicker when it happens, how can this type of event be avoided? While I'm currently at a tiny venue that would never dream of crowds like this, I've worked at venues like this in the past (and probably will in the future) and this sort of thing gives me nightmares! I'm mostly talking about how to mitigate the "crowd surge" behavior. I know that having more security on hand and perhaps an artist who isn't instigating that type of behavior is probably the first step!

 

[macsound]

Sounds like a sad and unnecessary way to die.
I'm confused about what happened. It was just overcrowded and people were literally smooshed to death?
I'm not a regular attender or outdoor concerts but the most obvious way to avoid this is capacity restrictions. Just because it's outside doesn't mean egress can be ignored.
In the outdoor events I have attended there are ushers that maintain walkways and "ticketing tiers", essentially selling the pit as a different tier because it's enclosed, close to talent, camera risers and the mix position.

Again, not a huge outdoor concert goer and I can see how free-for-all festivals like Coachella can become a mess.

 

[TheaterEd]

I do not have a primary source for this information that I can cite, so this first part is mostly speculation and should be edited by mods if they think it is inappropriate. I trust your judgement.

From what I've read, one of the huge problems that allowed this to happen was that some of the dividing barriers were trampled which allowed a larger crowd to crush towards the stage. The first thing that could have been done is that as soon as the barrier went down, the show needed to come to a halt and lights turned on until it was repaired.

I think back to my young-dumb-concert-goer days and the feeling of the crush in a 5,000 person venue. Multiply that by 10 and if you don't have proper crowd separations, then it is not hard to see how this kind of thing can happen. According to the NYTimes article, the concert didn't stop until 40 minutes after the dangerous situation presented itself. The justification used was that they didn't want to incite a riot and make things worse by cancelling the concert. But that doesn't really pass the sniff test for me.

I look forward to more information becoming available, because the failure to control this crowd is completely unacceptable.

One thing I have enjoyed in the past few days is the amount of "Artists saving audience members" videos and stories that have been getting posted online.

 

[TimMc]

Live Nation, the promoter, has a track record of deaths and injuries (they were the promoter on the Radiohead roof collapse in Canada, where they took ZERO responsibility).

Live Nation, a company behind Astroworld, has a long history of safety violations

Live Nation is the biggest live-events company in the world. Court records and federal citations show that the company was already linked to 200 other deaths and 750 injuries before Friday's tragedy.

www.npr.org

Artists are not off the hook; there are currently 3 lawsuits filed naming the performers, too.

 

[TorrieS]

the show needed to come to a halt and lights turned on until it was repaired

Heck, they needed to do this when the fans rushed the gates and took down the metal detectors.

more info on their security and safety plans here, apparently they did not have a contingency for Crowd Surge? https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/us/astroworld-festival-operations-plan/index.html

 

[TheaterEd]

Heck, they needed to do this when the fans rushed the gates and took down the metal detectors.

more info on their security and safety plans here, apparently they did not have a contingency for Crowd Surge? https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/us/astroworld-festival-operations-plan/index.html

"Crowd management techniques will be employed to identify potentially dangerous crowd behavior in its early stages in an effort to prevent a civil disturbance/riot."

Yeah, I feel like fans rushing the gates and taking out metal detectors would qualify as "potentially dangerous crowd behavior".

" using the code "smurf" for a suspected deceased victim. "Never use the term 'dead' or 'deceased' over the radio," the plan states."

So they planned a cutesy code word that implies a person turned blue and died due to asphyxiation, but did not mention crowd crush, crowd surge, or crowd panic in this plan. They do mention a separate risk assessment plan so I guess we wait for that.

It's really interesting to see the PR spin that certain articles put on Travis' actions versus the way his actions are interpreted on other sites. He's definitely got a good PR team.

 

[RonaldBeal]

From ESTA/Event safety Alliance:
ANSI E1.9-2020 Crowd Management

 

[gafftaper]

Assuming this guy actually is an EMT who was working during Astroworld and not just a rando making stuff up... This is a pretty disturbing view of what happened.
NSFW Language warning.

 

[TimMc]

Doesn't load/preview...

 

[dbaxter]

I feel so out-of-date. I don't go to a concert unless I have a reserved seat.

 

[dvsDave]

Doesn't load/preview...

Here's a youtube video that has stitched together footage of the concert with all 3 parts of the medic's account.

 

[TimMc]

Nobody should die for a good time.

As a matter of discussion - what would have mitigated the risk? Heavier barriers? More "security"? More uniformed law enforcement officers? Lower crowd density?

All of those have negative connotations or represent only minimal improvement in managing the crowd. When an audience is bent on rushing the stage I'm not sure what, short of armed response, would act as a temporary deterrent. And an armed response from civil authorities would pretty much guarantee a riot, so what are the available tools?

To keep this in context, I'm sure the prospect of a riot was on the minds of almost every production person there. Had I been a camera operator, I'd have more expected an attack than "please help, there are people dying here", and that certainly could have become the case if things had gone further.

So if YOU were working a gig where this occurred... how would you respond? We have more potential threats in production that we've ever had in the history of our industry...

 

[dvsDave]

Nobody should die for a good time.

As a matter of discussion - what would have mitigated the risk? Heavier barriers? More "security"? More uniformed law enforcement officers? Lower crowd density?

All of those have negative connotations or represent only minimal improvement in managing the crowd. When an audience is bent on rushing the stage I'm not sure what, short of armed response, would act as a temporary deterrent. And an armed response from civil authorities would pretty much guarantee a riot, so what are the available tools?

To keep this in context, I'm sure the prospect of a riot was on the minds of almost every production person there. Had I been a camera operator, I'd have more expected an attack than "please help, there are people dying here", and that certainly could have become the case if things had gone further.

So if YOU were working a gig where this occurred... how would you respond? We have more potential threats in production that we've ever had in the history of our industry...

This article actually answers most of your questions.

Adelman on Venues: Last Night at Astroworld

HOUSTON - On Nov. 6, lawyer and VP of the Event Safety Alliance Steve Adelman addressed the tragedy that happened Nov. 5 at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, TX. On Adelman on Venues, Adelman offered advice to

plsn.com

 

[TheaterEd]

This incident actually had me thinking a lot about Summerfest here in Milwaukee. The per day average for Summerfest in 2019 was 65,000. In all my years attending I never recall feeling the crush like I have when going to shows at The Rave in Milwaukee and I realize now that it is because of the benches. As an attendee, I HATE, the benches. You can't sit on them because everyone stands anyways, and inevitably everyone is standing on them which makes for a wobbly concert experience. HOWEVER, because of the bleachers, there are always walkways through the crowds, and getting a density high enough to cause a crush is just not possible.



So now I find myself in the precarious scenario where I agree with having the bleachers in front of the stages, but I'm still going to be grumpy about it.

 

[bobgaggle]

This incident actually had me thinking a lot about Summerfest here in Milwaukee. The per day average for Summerfest in 2019 was 65,000. In all my years attending I never recall feeling the crush like I have when going to shows at The Rave in Milwaukee and I realize now that it is because of the benches. As an attendee, I HATE, the benches. You can't sit on them because everyone stands anyways, and inevitably everyone is standing on them which makes for a wobbly concert experience. HOWEVER, because of the bleachers, there are always walkways through the crowds, and getting a density high enough to cause a crush is just not possible.

So now I find myself in the precarious scenario where I agree with having the bleachers in front of the stages, but I'm still going to be grumpy about it.

so what if you replace the benches with short fence sections organized in some useful way. gives people something to stand near/lean on and creates walkways to get to your main 'aisles'. And would break up the crowd so a massive surge isn't possible...

 

[TheaterEd]

so what if you replace the benches with short fence sections organized in some useful way. gives people something to stand near/lean on and creates walkways to get to your main 'aisles'. And would break up the crowd so a massive surge isn't possible...

Just because I'm part of the herd doesn't mean I want to feel like a sheep.

My thought is that any kind of fencing solution would be subject to getting moved by the audience. Either by them over packing a section and causing it to bulge or by the audience just moving them. And if the fencing doesn't move, then you get the problem of people packing in from both sides and crushing towards the middle.

 

[dvsDave]

Just because I'm part of the herd doesn't mean I want to feel like a sheep.

My thought is that any kind of fencing solution would be subject to getting moved by the audience. Either by them over packing a section and causing it to bulge or by the audience just moving them. And if the fencing doesn't move, then you get the problem of people packing in from both sides and crushing towards the middle.

Depends on the configuration. Have you ever seen some of the crowd modeling done on for Roman Colosseum? A thing of beauty. Columns that break up crowd movement, high stacked seating to prevent crowding, the width of the lower stairs increases as you go lower. It's a thing of beauty and proves that we can use the environment to control crowds.



There's an entire formalized crowd management methodology, known as DIME-ICE to deal with crowds. It's part of the ANSI standard for Crowd Management. (ANSI ES1.9-2020)

In general, though, you can control crowd crush by breaking up the crowd into smaller units. Crowd crush depends on a critical mass and by breaking up the layout, you can control the density of the crowd.

 

[gafftaper]

This is a photo of the layout. I'm no expert, but I believe this is actually considered to be a fairly good anti-surge strategy. Those fences break up the crowd and give security a lot of access into the crowd. They also used the good fences, not just bicycle racks as early posts claimed. This is the kind with the elevated platforms on the back that allow security to see over the crowd. Which takes us back to questions like why did the concert continue 40 minutes after it was declared a mass casualty event.

 

[dvsDave]

This is a photo of the layout. I'm no expert, but I believe this is actually considered to be a fairly good anti-surge strategy. Those fences break up the crowd and give security a lot of access into the crowd. They also used the good fences, not just bicycle racks as early posts claimed. This is the kind with the elevated platforms on the back that allow security to see over the crowd. Which takes us back to questions like why did the concert continue 40 minutes after it was declared a mass casualty event.

View attachment 22394

Do we know where the VIP entrance is, that's where the crowd broke past the ticketing area.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Some Ground Truth, from the associated press:

70 minutes at Astroworld: A countdown to catastrophe

Anticipation had been building for hours, but never more than now, as the red numerals on the countdown clock disappeared and the first synthesized notes vibrated. An image of an eagle in a fireball hovered above the stage, a neon red tunnel appeared and eight towers of flames rose to the sky.

apnews.com