When disaster strikes, it’s not atypical for people to look for someone to blame in an attempt to make sense of the situation. In the case of Astroworld, some are pointing the finger at festival founder Travis Scott for continuing to perform for 37 minutes as the horrific events unfolded in the crowd of approximately 50,000.
Scott’s set kicked off at around 9:04 p.m. local time. Emergency personnel declared a “mass-casualty incident” at 9:38 p.m. local time and about 55 Houston Fire Department units responded and started performing CPR.
Roughly an hour into his performance, Scott noticed an emergency vehicle with sirens making its way through the crowd and shouted, “What the fuck is that?” He added, “If everybody good, put a middle finger up to the sky! You know what you came here to do.” From there, he erupted into “UPPER ECHELON” and sent two members of his entourage diving off the stage to crowd surf.
Around 10 p.m., a woman and man climb up to the stage and screamed at the cameraman, “There is somebody dead in there! There is someone dead!” But their shrieks appeared to land on deaf ears.
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And that was enough evidence for people to start holding Travis Scott responsible for the eight casualties and hundreds injured.
On Saturday (November 6), the hashtag “Cancel Travis Scott” became a trending Twitter topic as people’s ire turned toward the multi-platinum rapper.
But as Scott explained in an Instagram video, he was unaware how serious the situation had become. Noticeably drained, Scott insisted he would’ve acted sooner had he truly understood what was going on.
“I want to send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night,” he begins. “We’re actually working right now to identify the families, so we can help a system though this tough time. My fans really mean the world to me, and I always wanna leave them with a positive experience and anytime I can make out anything that’s going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need, you know? I could just never imagine the severity of the situation.”
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Travis Scott then assured everyone he was cooperating with authorities to figure out what went wrong.
“We’ve been working closely with everyone to get to the bottom of this — the City of Houston, HPD, fire department, everyone that can help us — to help us figure this out,” he added. “So if you have any information, please contact the local authorities. Everybody just continue to keep your prayers. I’m honestly just devastated.
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“I could never imagine anything like this happening. I’m gonna do everything I can to help keep you guys updated and keep you guys informed of what’s going on. Love you all.”
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In addition to the eight fatalities — which included a 14-year-old — Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner confirmed a total of 25 people were transferred to local hospitals from the venue and 13 remain hospitalized, including five people under 18.
Despite Scott’s explanation, the accusatory tweets continue to pour in on Sunday (November 7). Check out some of them below.
