Astroworld Disaster

[MNicolai]

So in the end, nobody is responsible, this was all an unavoidable accident, seeing as the grand jury didn't see fit to indict anyone.

Criminally, at least.

In civil court there have been over 500 cases filed, at least some of which have reached settlements. Doesn't give the same sense of justice, but I'm going to guess all parties involved will be more proactive at avoiding situations like this in the future if for no other reason than to avoid the brute force number of billable hours spent in litigation even before a trial or a settlement is reached.

 

[dvsDave]

Criminally, at least.

In civil court there have been over 500 cases filed, at least some of which have reached settlements. Doesn't give the same sense of justice, but I'm going to guess all parties involved will be more proactive at avoiding situations like this in the future if for no other reason than to avoid the brute force number of billable hours spent in litigation even before a trial or a settlement is reached.

Considering Live Nation is a publicly traded company (LYV), you would expect that pressure is being brought to bear on Live Nation by their shareholders, if only cynically, to avoid a payout like that again. Live Nation grossed over 16 billion last year, although its net income was only 296 million. , and that already accounts for some of those payouts, so who knows if they give a damn or not. The bad publicity that Astroworld generated didn't seem to hurt their bottom line in 2022.

 

[MNicolai]

@dvsDave, I tend to think of it less as a publicity problem. The general public already hates Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It's more a problem that they're going to be stuck in a triple digit swarm of cases of litigation for several years because no one had the authority, spine, or coordination, to pump the brakes before the fatalities started.

The incentive to not repeat this won't come from PR -- it'll come from lawyers, insurers, and shareholders.

 

[dvsDave]

@dvsDave, I tend to think of it less as a publicity problem. The general public already hates Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It's more a problem that they're going to be stuck in a triple digit swarm of cases of litigation for several years because no one had the authority, spine, or coordination, to pump the brakes before the fatalities started.

The incentive to not repeat this won't come from PR -- it'll come from lawyers, insurers, and shareholders.

Ah, I had not considered the insurers! Those will be the ones forcing the reform. Talk about clout.

 

[TimMc]

Ah, I had not considered the insurers! Those will be the ones forcing the reform. Talk about clout.

Yep, it was the insurance industry that gave us the various life safety Codes (the "national electrical code", NFPA70), Underwriter's Labs, etc.

My experience has been that nobody in positions of monetary authority (read: power) will stop a show. We can go back to the Indiana State Fair roof blow-down and the Sugarland refusal to alter the performance schedule, the "promoter" (entertainment broker for the Fair Board) who insisted the show go on, and the lack of "BEFORE the Bad Thing Happens®" planning on the part of the Fair. People died as a result (IATSE truss spot ops were told to go up or get fired), and many were injured. There were multiple fingers to point: Mid America, James Thomas Engineering, Indy State Fair, the structural engineer that made errors in loading calcs... The documents from the investigations by Whitt Associates (planning and response) and Thornton Tomasetti (forensic engineers) were on the State of Indiana web site for 10 years, and the T-T report is still available on line from other sources; not sure about the Whitt report, but it was especially damning when it came to the "leadership" of an imminent disaster situation and pointed out that most of the negative decisions were made by people who had a monetary interest in not cancelling or postponing the performance. Until the fines exceed the potential profits by 10X, these bad non-decisions will continue.

Travis Scott should be personally liable for part of the damages, and Live Nation/TicketScum should be on the hook for the rest.