The tragedy that took place at the Astroworld event in Houston Texas last week took me back to 2017 and a Harry Styles concert in Berlin.
While the crowds were entering the site, people started running from the back of the queue and I got separated from my friend and pushed to the ground. For a few seconds people were running over me. I was lucky that security saw what was happening and came to help, escorting me to the front of the queue while trying to calm me down.
The victims at Astrowold were less fortunate and you don’t need to be a passionate concert-goer like me to be deeply affected by what happened to them. Twitter user @PopCrave was one of the many accounts that tweeted about the tragedy.
Twitter user: @popcrave
The Houston police have launched an investigation to look for answers. How could this happen? Why were there not enough staff? What caused the surge? But for now even those who were at the concert can only guess.
A few shared their experience of the disaster. Many of them described it “like being in hell”. All of them feared for their lives. Below are some of the stories shared on Instagram.
In the first post below Senna Faith tells how she was near the stage when “people began to drown – in other people”. She made it to a platform and tried to get security and a cameraman to help.
Instagram user cactus.kish had been to more than 40 Travis Scott shows before. He describes how the left side of the stage was overcrowded and how in is opinion everything got out of control after Travis Scott hyped up the crowd to be aggressive.
Sydnee Johnson, who was at the concert with her boyfriend and two friends, describes arrangements for getting into the festival as a “shitshow” and the security check as “a joke.”
Travis Scott and the whole team behind Astroworld are facing legal action from the families of the victims. Scott has offered people to get a full refund but a condition is that, they would lose the right to sue if they accept the refund.
Below is Twitter user @talkthirtytome who exposed the refund scandal.
Stay tuned for the Rising East podcast Ear 4 Music by Mamie Mboob for more news and comment about Astroworld.
Cover picture/map via The BBC
