8 dead after crowd surge at US festival

[beesonthewhatnow]

Travis Scott's Astroworld: Eight killed after crowd surge at Texas festival

Travis Scott's Astroworld: Eight killed after crowd surge at Texas festival

Panic broke out after the crowd began to press towards the stage at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival.

www.bbc.co.uk

Grim

This absolutely shouldn’t happen nowadays, there are ways of arranging barriers and monitoring systems that help prevent this. Serious questions to be asked.

 

[Numbers]

I was just reading about that, grim alright. Can’t imagine how scared you’d be if in the thick of it.

 

[Badgers]

Nasty business

Social distancing not happening at all. No doubt there will also be a Covid windfall to follow.

 

[Spandex]

This absolutely shouldn’t happen nowadays

Totally this.

Since the crush at the Roskilde Festival killed 9 people in 2000 anyone thinking about planning a festival, especially a big one (50,000 people at Astroworld), has to spend a lot of time looking at crowd flows, crush points, barrier layouts and design, escape routes, front of stage pit, stewarding. I don't know about US licensing, but in the UK if you can't convince the council that you've been through all this and made it as safe as possible, you won't get an events licence.

 

[BigTom]

The US generally does not have the same health and safety culture that European festivals developed after Roskilde, I doubt they will have to have gone through anything as stringent. Texas as well so even less likely.

The culture there is more like if you don't get this right you'll get sued for it so that will make sure people do the proper h&s stuff, but it doesn't work as well.

 

[Yossarian]

Organisation looks to have been very shoddy - there was a stampede that appears to have destroyed one of the entrances many hours before the crowd crush.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Organisation looks to have been very shoddy - there was a stampede that appears to have destroyed one of the entrances many hours before the crowd crush.

Fucking hell

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Social distancing not happening at all. No doubt there will also be a Covid windfall to follow.

When a bunch of people have been crushed to death in a crowd, "I bet they weren't social distancing" is a pretty shitty take.

And Astroworld required proof of a negative Covid test to attend.

 

[A380]

Horrible way to go because someone fucked up the planning.

 

[Badgers]

When a bunch of people have been crushed to death in a crowd, "I bet they weren't social distancing" is a pretty shitty take.

And Astroworld required proof of a negative Covid test to attend.

Just pointing out that more people will certainly die.

As for proof of test that has been a 'requirement' oft overlooked at almost all festival's and indeed many airports.

 

[Pickman's model]

Nasty business

Social distancing not happening at all. No doubt there will also be a Covid windfall to follow.

yeh winter is coming

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Horrifying. I didn't think "festival seating" was allowed in the US any more. We had our own tragedy years ago as well. It sounds similar to this:

Concert of Death : Cities Rethink 'Festival Seating' After Three AC/DC Fans Die

It was his first concert. The arena was dark. The crowd was wired.

www.latimes.com

<edited to add>
I know that its irrelevant at this point, but Austin was one of the cities that cut police funding by 33%. You can bet that the Republicans are going to latch on to that and try to link it to this tragedy.

 

[A380]

Horrifying. I didn't think "festival seating" was allowed in the US any more. We had our own tragedy years ago as well. It sounds similar to this:

Concert of Death : Cities Rethink 'Festival Seating' After Three AC/DC Fans Die

It was his first concert. The arena was dark. The crowd was wired.

www.latimes.com

Do the police still do crowd management for events in the States? It’s almost all private contractors in the UK nowadays.
<edited to add>
I know that its irrelevant at this point, but Austin was one of the cities that cut police funding by 33%. You can bet that the Republicans are going to latch on to that and try to link it to this tragedy.

 

[NoXion]

Horrifying. I didn't think "festival seating" was allowed in the US any more. We had our own tragedy years ago as well. It sounds similar to this:

Concert of Death : Cities Rethink 'Festival Seating' After Three AC/DC Fans Die

It was his first concert. The arena was dark. The crowd was wired.

www.latimes.com

<edited to add>
I know that its irrelevant at this point, but Austin was one of the cities that cut police funding by 33%. You can bet that the Republicans are going to latch on to that and try to link it to this tragedy.

Which is utterly stupid. If a crowd starts crushing or stampeding, then there's not going to be anything that a handful of cops on the scene are going to be able to do to stop it. In fact if anything, given how poorly trained US cops are, chances are they might panic, start shooting (because as well as being poorly trained, they're often itching to murder someone, preferably someone black) and make the situation even worse.

I would challenge any such idiot to explain exactly how a few cops are going to stop an already-moving crowd of hundreds to thousands of people.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Do the police still do crowd management for events in the States? It’s almost all private contractors in the UK nowadays.

A lot of them work them as a side job when they're off duty.

 

[Ax^]

pretty pictures and video from the event


why the fuck they did not stop the music when the notice things getting out of hand of madness

had people jumping in top of carts trying to assist the injured

 

[Yossarian]

Horrifying. I didn't think "festival seating" was allowed in the US any more. We had our own tragedy years ago as well. It sounds similar to this:

Concert of Death : Cities Rethink 'Festival Seating' After Three AC/DC Fans Die

It was his first concert. The arena was dark. The crowd was wired.

www.latimes.com

<edited to add>
I know that its irrelevant at this point, but Austin was one of the cities that cut police funding by 33%. You can bet that the Republicans are going to latch on to that and try to link it to this tragedy.

This was in Houston - tbh I think most Republicans will have made up their minds about the causes of the tragedy as soon as they heard the word "rapper."

Ted Cruz, meanwhile, linked the failure of a proposition to hire hundreds more cops in Austin to the city having the only nude beach in Texas.

Ted Cruz Grunting About Nude Beaches For Some Reason

Oh no, the nakeds.

www.wonkette.com

 

[Petcha]

 

[bimble]

This is my biggest phobia. Can’t think of a worse way to die.

 

[Petcha]

One of the victims who suffocated while this twat was shouting about why the fuck an ambulance was in his crowd was 10 years old. Horrible.

 

[weltweit]

Some news bulletins are saying it was his festival, others just that he was playing there. If it was his festival I expect the authorities will be speaking to him anyhow.

 

[Badgers]

This is my biggest phobia. Can’t think of a worse way to die.

Being boiled alive would be worse.

Being set on fire is way better because your nerve endings get burned away. If you are boiled then they stay alert to the pain till your organs cook and fail.

 

[PR1Berske]

Being boiled alive would be worse.

Being set on fire is way better because your nerve endings get burned away. If you are boiled then they stay alert to the pain till your organs cook and fail.

Thanks, Badgers.

never sleeps again

 

[editor]

Organisation looks to have been very shoddy - there was a stampede that appears to have destroyed one of the entrances many hours before the crowd crush.

People just stamping over people stuck on the ground to get in. Awful.

 

[petee]

Being boiled alive would be worse.

Being set on fire is way better because your nerve endings get burned away. If you are boiled then they stay alert to the pain till your organs cook and fail.

what the everliving fuck.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

He could have chosen to use that moment to calm the crowd down and ask them make way.

 

[Ax^]

statement from the lass that got on stage begging for them to stop the show

 

[editor]

Here's how you do it

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

The more I read about this the angrier I’m getting. There has been a catastrophic sequence of failures.

 

[Lorca]

I remember going to gigs in 80's/90's where you would literally get swept off your feet by the pressure of the crowd and moved around the venue with absolutely no control where you were going. I also remember being on the terraces at St Andrews and the same thing happening all the time. Seemed fun at the time but it could easily have gone wrong - the thought kind of horrifies me now, especially after terrible events like this .