Astroworld tragedy offers lessons in crowd safety for Sacramento’s growing live music scene

In the aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy in Houston, where eight people were killed Friday in a crush of fans plowing forward to see rapper Travis Scott perform, comparisons to Sacramento’s Lost in Riddim festival flooded social media.

On the first night of the inaugural afrobeats festival in the Railyards last month, several people were injured during a rush to the stage when headliner Wizkid started his set. Festival organizers gaslighted fans in a statement the next morning, acknowledging “some kinks at our new fest” and promised to increase security.

Many of the people who paid to be there saw it differently.

“I thought it was it for me,” recalled one person on Twitter, saying she was trampled at Lost in Riddim. “No one was able to hear my screams, I couldn’t breathe, my ankle was injured ... I can’t fathom what concert goers experienced at #ASTROWORLDFest”

Houston investigators are rightly probing security plans, questioning Astroworld organizers and pressing concert promoter Live Nation, a profit-obsessed monopoly with a stranglehold on live entertainment, to understand what went wrong. Live Nation was also behind Lost in Riddim.

Paul Wertheimer, a nationally recognized concert safety consultant, has told several media outlets this week that a key fixture of such tragedies is “festival seating,” a shoulder-to-shoulder, general admission approach that eliminates empty space and maximizes profit. The same environment played a role in a deadly crush in Cincinnati in 1979, when 11 people were trampled at a concert by The Who. In 1991, three were killed in a similar manner at an AC/DC show in Salt Lake City.

This concert format is here to stay, though. Festivals have become a staple in the $20 billion global concert industry, with at least 800 held in the U.S. each year (prior to the pandemic). Yes, investigators should thoroughly examine emergency plans and scrutinize Astroworld’s design so this is never repeated. It’s just hard to imagine there will be any significant policy change when there’s so much money involved.

Moreover, emphasizing what Houston officials and private companies did or didn’t do allows Scott, who has a checkered crowd safety record, to duck the accountability he deserves. It also ignores the science of crowd behavior and the role of individuals in creating safe environments for the people around them.

Full disclosure: I’m a Travis Scott fan. He’s a true original, and his incendiary style makes him a dynamic performer. Scott also refers to his fans as “ragers” and gets off on whipping them into a dangerous frenzy. Los Angeles Times music writer August Brown recalled a scene in Scott’s Netflix documentary, “Look Mom I Can Fly,” in which a fan exited a show on crutches, stoked to have survived the experience.

In 2015, Scott pleaded guilty to reckless conduct charges after inciting fans to jump security fences at Lollapalooza and overtake the stage. His set lasted five minutes before it was shut down.

Multiple people were also hospitalized after a stampede at the last Astroworld two years ago, prompting Houston’s police chief to visit Scott before the show last week and discuss the energy of the crowd. Clearly Scott didn’t listen.

Rengin Firat, an assistant professor of sociology at UC Riverside who studies social psychology, morality and well-being, said Scott deserves blame and bears responsibility “as the leader of that setting, as the person who was performing.”

“He should have assumed the responsibility to intervene,” Firat said. “Other people, even if there’s multiple people, they might not intervene because of bystander apathy.”

Different musical genres have different cultural rules and rituals, but there is nothing inherently dangerous about concerts, Firat said. Scott, however, has curated conditions at his shows that create so-called “emergent norms” that compromise individual safety.

Using pyrotechnics and hypnotic visuals, Scott’s shows cause a sensory overload that can overwhelm people. That can become more dangerous when the audience skews younger and many people are abusing opioids. It doesn’t help that Scott encourages riotous behavior, either.

Firat said the deadly daily realities of the pandemic introduced a period when we are “seeing versions of anomie.” Popularized by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, the term describes a loss of social cohesion, norm-less behavior and distrust of people who aren’t part of our “in-group.”

“That’s why we see very erratic behavior sometimes when we are waiting in line or there are increases in xenophobia and racism,” Firat said.

In a crowd affected by anomie, frightened people become less empathetic toward others, she said. Combatting this requires conscious compassion to act and help others in danger. It’s a type of Smokey Bear philosophy that requires all of us to play a role in protecting fellow concertgoers.

Sacramento saw crowd conditions go awry at Lost in Riddim, and surely there have been other incidents that didn’t get as much attention. As the local music scene grows on the heels of a summer of This 916 block parties and with festivals like Give Thanks at Cal Expo coming later this month, artists and fans alike have a vital part to play in crowd safety.