Travis Scott offering Astroworld refunds and pledges to pay for funerals
Houston's police are also offering conflicting accounts of just how dangerous Astroworld seemed ahead of time
Aux News Astroworld
As the lawsuits against everyone involved with Houston’s Astroworld festival—during which multiple people were killed in a stampede incident—continue to roll in, founder Travis Scott (who is the target of many of those lawsuits) is clearly looking for a way to respond.
Yesterday, he posted a short video on Instagram that seemingly responded to critics who said that he could’ve stopped the show early when it became clear that something bad had happened in the crowd, with the rapper saying that it never occurred to him that it could’ve been as bad as it ended up being.
Today, Variety says that Scott has decided to give full refunds to anyone who bought tickets to Astroworld, which was cut short over the weekend after the deaths. A separate Variety story says that Scott has also promised to pay for the funeral costs of the people who died in the crowd surge (two of whom were minors) in addition to working with only therapy service BetterHelp to provide one-on-one counseling for anyone who signs up from a specific link.
This all comes as Houston Police Chief Troy Finner offers apparently contradictory statements about how dangerous Astroworld seemed. The New York Times says that he met with Scott ahead of the performance to discuss “concerns about the crowd,” with Houston law enforcement reportedly being worried about the potential for chaos given Scott’s reputation for riling up crowds—in addition to other ongoing issues, like the COVID pandemic.
Still, one of those Variety stories says Finner has defended the way things were handled, denying accusations that the festival was understaffed and saying that “the number of officers on hand should have been sufficient to handle a crowd of 50,000.” Finner also defended the controversial decision to keep the show going until its planned conclusion at 10:15, despite the fact that the crowd surge had turned deadly an hour before that. Variety says that he believes ending the show abruptly like that “could have caused a riot.”
25 Comments
There will still be lawsuits, and there should be.
That was hard to watch. Damn.
Shit. It gave me goosebumps.
Can paying for the funerals be considered admitting culpability in a court of law? I can’t imagine his lawyers are thrilled with this. If it’s enough to keep him offstage for awhile, where by all accounts he has a history of inciting and encouraging audiences in stupid behavior, then good for him.
The idea of admitting culpability because of the words you choose is complete nonsense.
True. That whole bit in the Miranda warning of “anything you say definitely won’t be used against you in court” bears this to be true.
Civil liability chief.
Agreed, kemosabe – in civil actions things you said in public can come back to haunt you (or your finances).
No you fuck. You can’t be held liable by apologizing or accommodating people. Jesus fuck. This is a complete myth.
Sorry you were molested, but there’s no call for insults, bruh
That was my first thought…offering to pay is an invitation to civil suits. I assume his legal reps weren’t ahead of this. We live in a post-apology world.
I doubt very much that his lawyers give a shit. The issue is one of negligence, the key question is what he “reasonably” had an obligation to do to prevent injury to concert attendees as a performer on stage (an objective standard) vs. what he actually did. Neither of those can be changed by what he does after the fact. If he was accused of a crime he denied having any involvement with and then did something afterwards that could be construed as an apology, then that would be relevant to suggest he did commit the crime, otherwise why apologize? But there’s no question whatsoever that he was on stage when it happened, and that it happened to his fans, so the fact that he feels a moral responsibility to help those affected is hardly surprising, and not relevant. The case would never go to trial, it’ll get settled, but I’d be very surprised if a court imposed a legal responsibility on a concert performer to do double duty as concert security, it’s way too much ask them to police their fans in the middle of a performance. It’s a duty of the event organizer and of the venue to ensure you don’t overpack fans, to have security in proximity monitoring, to have medics on hand, etc… Someone on that corporate organizing side is going to pay, but they’re also going to have insurance that pays it.Who should be mad is his PR agent. “You may die at one of my concerts, but I’ll pay for your funeral!”
“You may die at one of my concerts, but I’ll pay for your funeral!”
That’s the kind of deal I like!
Paying for funerals would generally NOT be an admission of culpability, fwiw. Not even sure how it could be construed as such.
I don’t think it has any admission of guilt. If someone had a heart attack at the event, he could pay for the funeral as a way to say, “We’re a community, and it’s sad this happened at our event” without being held responsible.Which isn’t to say that I think he or the organizers don’t have any culpability or responsibility. I think they do, but paying for the funerals doesn’t admit guilt. (But, of course, I’m not a lawyer, so my opinion is worth less than the security at the Astroworld VIP gate.)
Fuck Travis ScottFuck DrakeAnd Fuck the Kardashians Are we CLEAR?
I know it’s super fashionable hate on cops these days but I am 100% positive that every single cop at that venue cared more about the audience than Travis fucking Scott.
That’s not really saying a whole lot.
I really hope this asshole is arrested. He won’t be, but I can hope.
in addition to working with only therapy service BetterHelpDoes…no one edit this website worth millions of dollars
You think their private equity owners are gonna pay for that? Those guys are trying to wring every last dollar they can while keeping expenses to a bare minimum.
I cannot imagine how scary this must have been in person. I feel for everyone there. I would never expect an artist to plan an “all ages” show and knowingly put people in harm’s way. So I can imagine many people were shocked and scared when it became so dangerous. All for what? Money? A big moment on Apple TV? It is senseless and shameless and so heartbreaking. Everyone there was probably so scared. Why did authorities only warn the artists beforehand? I feel like they should have warned the public too, if they were truly so concerned. Maybe they did and I missed it.
Anyway, it is not the authorities’ fault, and if they did not want to warn the public, I am sure the reason is they did not want to inadvertantly encourage the chaos by making a public statement beforehand. All that matters is the victims families’ find peace, and I wish it never happened.
I cannot imagine how scary this must have been in person. I feel for everyone there. I would never expect an artist to plan
an “all ages” show and knowingly put people in harm’s way. So I can
imagine many people were shocked and scared when it became so dangerous.
There’s a video circulating of people in the middle of the crush screaming for their lives.
I can only imagine. It must have been so traumatic. Do we know why the concert was not shut down after the riots in the VIP area earlier in the day yet? I know nothing can change what happened but I hope everyone who was there gets answers and a real sense of how this actually happened.
That’s nice of him