UPDATE: 11 Astroworld attendees file lawsuits against Travis Scott
The lawsuits come after a crowd surge at Travis Scott's headlining set left eight dead and dozens injured
Aux News Travis Scott
On Friday night, eight people died and dozens were left severely injured after a crowd surge at Astroworld during founder Travis Scott’s headlining set. Now, Scott is facing two lawsuits filed by Astroworld attendees.
One of them is from Manuel Souza, who filed a lawsuit against promoter Live Nation and organizer ScoreMore, in addition to Scott.
Billboard reports that in a petition filed on Saturday—a day after the festival—Souza alleges that the defendants “consciously ignored the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers, and, in some cases actively encouraged and fomented dangerous behaviors.”
Souza claims the event’s organizers ignored alarming moments before Scott’s headlining performance, including an incident (caught in a now-viral video) where “concertgoers breached a security gate around the park, stampeded into the premises, and trampled over one another.” He also says that this behavior has “long been encouraged by the festival’s founder and main performer [Travis Scott].”
Souza is seeking “at least $1 million in damages” and his attorneys requested a temporary restraining order “preventing any destruction of evidence, which could be heard in court as soon as Monday.”
The Daily Mail also reports that another attendee named Kristian Paredes filed a complaint, suing Travis Scott, guest performer Drake, Live Nation, and Harris County Sports And Convention Corporation for negligence. In this suit, Paredes alleges that Drake helped “incite the crowd.”
According to Paredes’ account of what happened, he felt an “immediate push” while standing in the front of the general admission section, then “the crowd became chaotic and a stampede began leaving eight dead and dozens including [Paredes] severely injured.”
“There is every indication that the performers, organizers, and venue were not only aware of the hectic crowd but also that injuries and potential deaths may have occurred,” wrote Paredes’ attorney Thomas J. Henry in the suit. “Still, they decided to put profits over their attendees and allowed the deadly show to go on.”
Rolling Stone and The Houston Chronicle also reported that a third person, Cristian Guzman, filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and NRG Park. He filed a request for a restraining order to be issued that would stop Live Nation from “damaging, modifying, altering, selling or disposing of any evidence of negligence at NRG Park during the Astroworld Fest 2021 on the night of Nov. 5 and the morning of Nov. 6, 2021.”
Guzman is also seeking more than $1 million in damages, claiming that Live Nation and NRG Park did not “control and supervise the crowd at the event.” He alleges that he was “pushed to the ground and trampled,” resulting in a “significant back injury.”
UPDATE: 11/08 2:15 P.M CST.: Rolling Stone reports that Astroworld was hit with fourteen lawsuits; eleven of those name Travis Scott as a defendant. The new nine plaintiffs are all represented by the same lawyer, Sean A. Roberts.
53 Comments
I’ve seen that Scott has incited bad behavior like this. What kind of things has he done?Unrelated, Thomas J Henry is a big billboard lawyer here in Texas. I see his angry, serious face all the time.
Just do a simple Google search. His incitement of crowds has actually been used as a selling point in Astroworld promos. At one show, he famously encouraged a young fan to jump from a balcony.
“he famously encouraged a young fan to jump from a balcony.”
And that fan was eventually pushed from the balcony and was partially paralyzed.
Thank you for your service in driving ambulances during this pandemic.
I don’t know of any direct incidents of him inciting violence, but it seems like his crowds are easily incitable.
They tried to break into an arena in Tulsa when he canceled a show there on short notice. Not sure what they were hoping to do when they got inside? Maybe they really wanted tour shirts?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/travis-scott-tulsa-concert-cancelled-police-use-pepper-balls-on-angry-crowd-after-postponed-oklahoma-show/
Did someone punch you in the brain this morning?
On stage (and on video) he’s asked for his fans to assault other fans, and he’s got a history of telling his fans to jump fences and sneak around security. He also publicly announced that he expanded the crowd size from the initial capacity- and he and Live Nation don’t seem to have accommodated the crowd size with appropriate water, first aid, or security. There’s pretty damning stuff on the surface of this whole fiasco, and investigations might be all the more damning- culpability on the organizing of the event, what the production’s management did when the deaths and crowd surge was evident.
There was a video going around of a time he crowed surfed and while doing so, someone tried to take his shoe. As Sott was getting pulled out, he singled the fan out and repeatedly said “beat him up” to people around the fan. As security got the fan out of crowed, Scott again said “beat him up” and then spat at the fan.
I mean, this, for starters:
a society of consumers.
So General Admission ? Forgetting the past always comes back to hurt/kill . Eleven people killed in a stampede outside Who concert in Cincinnati, Ohio – HISTORY
I get that this is not a law blog, but is there any legal precedent for performers being held liable for these incidents? I don’t know how the concert biz works, but I’m pretty sure the modern performers don’t have a lot of direct control over things like event logistics, organization, or security.
What they DO have control over is encouraging and inciting dangerous behavior, which is exactly what Scott has done over and over again at his shows. Look it up.
Good question. Scott is the creator of this festival though (it’s named after one of his albums), so that might make him liable.
Ah, this entire team I thought it was related to the Houston Astros for some reason.
Lol, well it was held in Houston so it’s not too far fetched to think that.
Astroworld was the former Houston Six Flags location, which shut down about 15 years ago and was located directly across the highway from the Astrodome (now part of NRG park, though it’s dilapidated).
Naming his album and festival that are nostalgia plays. Which is amusing because one of the reasons it closed was it became so dangerous that families stopped going.
He’s also the one apparently constantly telling the crowd to do what they did. That right there makes it 100% his fault.
I believe precedent was set during the disastrous run of STOMP on Broadway that left dozens crushed.
Too soon dude. Too soon.
Travis Scott was not just the performer, it’s his festival. So it’s to be expected that he would be one of the parties held responsible for this in civil court.Even if he was just the performer, though, there are potential liability issues. Did he rile up the crowd to unsafe levels? Did he have any input on how he wanted the venue set up? In general, when it comes to civil cases, anybody with even .1% of responsibility will get sued. The organizers, the performers, the security companies, the broadcasters, the company selling alcohol at the event, etc. And most of them will settle because it’s not worth fighting it.Criminal liability is a different story, and I don’t think we know enough about this concert yet to know if that’s going to happen here or not. But Travis Scott has been criminally charged for disorderly conduct/inciting a riot at past concerts, which certainly isn’t going to help him here.
I only ever heard of this dude before this because he was on boxes of Resses’ Puffs cereal. People were selling these boxes on ebay for $75. Customers asked me to check every box in the back to see if he was on it.
Travis Scott has encouraged exactly this sort of behavior at other shows, including specifically telling crowds to rush the stage, ignore staff and security, and in one famous case, jump off the balcony. He is a piece of shit and the fact that the AV Club seems intent on placing the blame on everyone but him is seriously fucked.
Where’s Bob Loblaw when you need him?!?!
Scott apparently behaves very different than most performers as far as having dangerous and chaotic crowds. He actively eggs it on in his shows. This is very fertile ground for being personally liable.
Maybe, but it sounds like the human crush wasn’t really caused by rowdiness so much as it was caused by just herding people towards the stage in an unsafe way.
I saw a video of somebody pleading with him to stop performing so they can stop the crush and help the wounded… he completely ignores her. Surely he’s not the only one responsible, and I’m no lawyer, but it seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to the make the case that he bears some responsibility.
The legal problems for Scott stem from the simple fact that he wasn’t just a paid performer at an event planned by a separate party. The responsibility for attendance safety falls upon the the event promoter. In this case travis is both the performer AND event promoter.
If he did it the smart way his team would’ve established an LLC to take any of the personal liability away from Scott. I’m guessing the LLC also took out a sizable insurance policy (an event that large would require one for a city/venue to allow it to happen). So, Scott is personally protected by the insurance policy and the LLC. I’m sure Scott will sue the venue, claiming they didn’t provide adequate measures to prevent something like this from happening.
At some point it seems the individuals in the crowd are to blame. Scott can’t “coerce” concert-goers to actually do anything. It should be interesting from a law standpoint what happens.
Travis Scott has been arrested multiple times, and plead guilty multiple times, for reckless endangerment related to encouraging people at his concerts to bum rush the stage.
Whether or not he bears responsibility as an organizer remains to be seen, but even if he was completely disconnected a rushed lawsuit like this would likely name him anyway along with anyone and everyone it makes sense to name on the off chance the investigation turns up that they had something to do with it. Note that several of the lawsuits name Drake as well even though he’s much less likely to have had much of anything to do with it just because he was on the stage as well towards the end.
The event was put on by Cactus Jack Records and Live Nation Entertainment. Cactus Jack Records is Scott’s company. This was his event, it’s not like Bonnaroo or Coachella where Scott was just hired entertainment.
I’m sure someone else has stressed this but I feel like it needs to be reiterated because Scott’s defenders are trying to push the narrative that he was just a performer who got tricked by the big bad concert promoter. In reality, a lot of this rests on Scott’s shoulders.
There is typically an exclusion in most artist’s liability policies that specifically excludes claims due to incitement of riots, mosh pits, etc. I don’t know how he is going to be able to tour or make money b/c he has basically deemed himself uninsurable by his actions. He has a history of inciting riots in the past and people have been hurt and or died. What I am trying to say is he is in deep sh**
I can’t believe whoever insured this event didn’t require more assurances from the organizer. Because that’s who is going to pay out the ass for this fiasco. This kind of disaster doesn’t happen all that often anymore because these festivals usually have fairly stringent safety requirements.
The insurers likely did have contractual requirements that may not have been fully met. The insurers will be doing most of the legal fighting and will probably try to deny claims on that basis. A judge will probably rule by casting some percentages around – insurers cover this %, organizers that %, and so on. It will be a long fight.
That’s not how this will work. Judges (unless it’s a bench trial) don’t assign percentages, and the existence of insurance will never go before the fact finder. In what state did you go to law school? It clearly wasn’t Texas.
Agreed. I bet the investigation will uncover gross negligence that allowed in too many attendees w/o nearly enough security and emergency medical folks.
How would someone with his track record even get a permit to have a show like this?
Well, this is the first time there have been serious casualties at a Travis Scott show. Pearl Jam are still allowed to perform, and they had nine deaths in a similar incident in 2000 (and similarly, they continued to play for half an hour after people had starting dying).
Someone was paralyzed at his show a few years ago and he’s twice been charged with inciting a riot at his concerts. After all that, the ads for this festival still encouraged attendees to “rage”. I’m going to guess Eddie Vedder didn’t lean into it in quite the same way.
Pearl Jam wasn’t organizing that show and stamping their name all over it though, it was just an ongoing festival they were hired to headline that one year.
If you’re comparing this to the Pearl Jam incident, you clearly haven’t read any of the accounts of what happened at Astroworld.
It also doesnt help that there are multiple accounts of reports that the medical staff there at the venue had next to no medical training and were completely useless as people laid their dying
Of all the horror stories the incompetent medics jump out as the best evidence of negligence. Medical emergencies aren’t exactly a rarity at concerts this size even with good crowd control and security. Medics who don’t know how to check a pulse, were they volunteers or something?
That was one of the scarier things I read about. It’s as if they hired anyone who owned a pair of scrubs and with a pulse, even they didn’t know how to check for a pulse. I’m not sure if I can trust a med tent ever again.
***deleted because of another damn duplicate post***
Probably just extremely inexperienced (i.e. cheapest & easiest to expend from regular duty) Emt 1st responders
One person attending the concert, who had medical training, was trying to help one of the victims and had multiple medical staff just flat out run away and leave the venue and just stood there in stunned shock as a woman laid dying on the ground. They were not prepared, were missing equipment, and the equipment they did have they had no idea how to use. What a shitshow. There better be criminal liability applied as well
I’m interested in whether event security was handled by Scott’s team or by the venue. He could potentially argue that the venue failed to provide adequate staff to handle that many people (video evidence seems to back this up) so he shouldn’t be liable.
But he chose the venue and set up the festival. Hes going to be responsible as well if he didnt verify that the medical staff was adequate
There are probably dozens of people who could sue for damages due to physical injuries and emotional distress. Jacques Bermon Webster II better have some good lawyers.
I’ve been reading eyewitness accounts all day of people who say they saw horrible things that they’ll never be able to forget, and talk about the “dark energy” that drove all of it. There’s gonna be a LOT of PTSD coming out of this.