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This was the layout of the front main stage area of Astroworld
am I understanding right that Travis Scott was the only artist that performed on this stage, with the secondary stage having every other performance?
That plus the design here seems like, tailor-made to cause an audience crush as everyone migrates over to the main stage for Travis
Yeah, he was the only act on that stage for Friday. Despite there being 45 mins in between they still ran over there. And on top of that Travis was about 20 - 30 mins late. So you had about an hour to find a spot, but somehow people treated it as if they only had 5 minutes to be there. The countdown on the main stage I feel was very problematic. Giving people that type of visual can ramp up emotions for better or worse.
“Over the last week, Travis Scott and his team have been actively exploring routes of connection with each and every family affected by the tragedy through the appropriate liaisons. He is distraught by the situation and desperately wishes to share his condolences and provide aid to them as soon as possible, but wants to remain respectful of each family’s wishes on how they’d best like to be connected. To those families who would like to reach out directly to his team, please send an email to the below address where we will have a team on hand to assist. AW21information@gmail.com.”
Post by Bonnascoot on Nov 11, 2021 19:45:01 GMT -5
Found the drone footage of the stage and OOF the picture doesn't even do it justice how bad the barricade design is. With the soundbooths being as obstructive as they are, your only options if you want to get a view are to either be in front of the soundbooths or in between them and back.
CNN reported today that the widely reported drug injection attack on the security guard was false. Only thing they said was that the security guard was actually hit over the head and was not injected with anything.
This was the layout of the front main stage area of Astroworld
This layout is perplexing. So were people alloyed in the VERY front section by the stage or was the closest you could get on one of the sides?
I saw a TikTok of someone who was there explaining the layout.
So the small section in the front right was VIP only. Everything else was GA, including the same tiny section in the front left. The other stages were all on the left as well. So you basically had everyone coming to the main stage from the left and very few people went to the back or walked around to go to the right. I’ve heard that the right had plenty of space and people over there had little idea of what was going on on the left. The “sinkhole of people” that resulted from everyone falling from the crowd surge I think happened somewhere in the middle-ish of the back left section, but possibly close to the middle walkway.
This was the layout of the front main stage area of Astroworld
It'd be good if once more info is known, somebody can make an animated video showing all the crowd pressure points given this stage setup, and where it exactly went wrong.
Roskilde 2019 has a similar barricade layout and can host as big a crowd as Travis. The "bridge" between the 2 soundboard light towers doesn't seem to be an issue here. The "wings" from the towers pointing to the edges would have given Astroworld a far different outcome. I think all the sections are first serve GA.
I think this is the stage where 9 died at a cut short Pearl Jam set in 2000(mud, dead really sound tower/barricade changes industry wide). Interestingly, I think Eddie Vedder actually met with each family on the next Euro tour.
Besides looking at safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators, Adelman said, authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage.
Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs.
"Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, that's really bad-looking," he said. "But as for what it tells us, it's too early to say."
I've been beating the drum about the increasing narcissism and complete disregard for everyone else around them from increasingly younger festival crowds for years
I never understand why people play with their phones when the full show has an HD stream available online friends can watch live or you can watch the next day. Though all the crowd footage has now become essential for close study.
This is definitely something thats been on my mind. The 9 year old at a Travis Scott show, another 10 year old in the ICU, two of the fatalities being 14 and 16, on top of all the other failures that is partially a failure of parenting. I like Travis Scott songs! But jesus, I wouldn't take my 9 year old to a show, much less anywhere near the pit. That part blows my mind.
3 people were killed at a 1991 Salt Lake City ACDC arena show with a GA floor. 2 of them were 14. Stuff like Green Day and foo Fighters get 9 or 10 year olds and some try the admittedly tamer arena GA pits, though most stick to the stands. In decades past parents took 9 year olds to KISS or Beatles or whatever pop tart of the year. I even know someone who saw a seated Ozzy show at age 8 with their parent waiting in the parking lot!! Glastonbury or Garcia era Grateful Dead shows had attendees under age 10 that were all GA.
also, as we all know, concertgoers in the 90s were just naturally better and more respectful of others than these awful millenials and zoomers
Snark aside, my market has had riots every decade since a Bill Haley show 65 years ago. I know those who saw Zeppelin 7 times and said it was a total sausage fest and weird macho vibe in the room. I did grunge era mosh pits at the time and been in football field pits where 20 people topple one one another and were helped up. Getting bumped in the head by crowd surfer shoes is something I'd prefer to forget. I randomly remember crowd surfing to the photo pit SIX TIMES during a single set at a couple festivals - as if it were a carnival ride with 10 others surfing at the same time being totally normal. I once dropped by glasses on the floor at a Misfits club show(Marky Ramone lineup) and they are still wearable as a back up pair.
Looking back, how did Woodstock 99 not end up with people being crushed? There were 250K there, no barricades, and a toxic atmosphere.
4 day camping marathon in extreme heat with crap food/water options will drain anyone's energy to rage or get crushed. FWIW, Bizkit were Saturday that weekend.
1. Travis Scott has that cult following 2. He glorifies extreme rowdiness (which is fine) 3. He glorifies rule breaking at shows 4. Crowd is young 5. Year of bottled up energy from covid 6. Yes Travis has played two other shows semi recently, but this was the Astroworld headlining set after 1.5 years of bogus covid life. The big return. 7. No Bonnaroo Pit system
8. Hometown show
Older audience, but Rage Against the Machine Coachella 2007 and RATM LA Rising 2011 were both world exclusive shows that tick many of those boxes.
1:45 & 2:58 Chile fans of RATM waiting 20 years for their only tour there. Opening song has the biggest mosh pit I've ever seen on video.
It'd be good if once more info is known, somebody can make an animated video showing all the crowd pressure points given this stage setup, and where it exactly went wrong.
Roskilde 2019 has a similar barricade layout and can host as big a crowd as Travis. The "bridge" between the 2 soundboard light towers doesn't seem to be an issue here. The "wings" from the towers pointing to the edges would have given Astroworld a far different outcome. I think all the sections are first serve GA.
I think this is the stage where 9 died at a cut short Pearl Jam set in 2000(mud, dead really sound tower/barricade changes industry wide). Interestingly, I think Eddie Vedder actually met with each family on the next Euro tour.
Besides looking at safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators, Adelman said, authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage.
Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs.
"Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, that's really bad-looking," he said. "But as for what it tells us, it's too early to say."
Travis actually played at Roskilde 2019 as well.
Never been there, but from what I understand they have an organized pit system with staff and security no different from other big European festivals. Whereas Astroworld made the front sections a free-for-all.
The entire internet knew of multiple deaths literally that very night. Yet, Travis knew nothing till the next day? No one in his camp told him anything?
But one thing that stands out to me are the reports of people who had fallen and other people just actively ignored them and stepped over them and kept raging. Like, the total lack of concert etiquette and watching out for those around you just astounds me. And I’m not talking about people on the other side who didn’t know what was happening. I’m talking about people who saw someone go down and STEPPED OVER OR ON THEM to move up a spot.
I've been beating the drum about the increasing narcissism and complete disregard for everyone else around them from increasingly younger festival crowds for years, now, and every time I do, there's a whole bunch of "KIDS WILL BE KIDS LOOK AT THIS OLD MAN YELLING AT CLOUD." We had a mini-riot after they called off Sunday of Governors Ball in 2019, leading to a bunch of navel-gazing about how the festival needed to be 18+ moving forward that was promptly forgotten during the pandemic, but it's not hard, in my opinion, to draw a line from that event to this. I saw assholes on reddit posting in the immediate aftermath of this thing about how, where they were in the crowd, they didn't notice any of the bad stuff going on, and also, they got great footage of the show, so it's a win.
I dunno, man. Kids are going to wild out at shows, and they should, but there's a way to do it without it resulting in injury, damage, or death, and we seem to have lost the plot on that, to a degree.
Belated response, but this checks with what I've noticed. I've been going to shows since 1996 so I understand that this could be a "tired old guy" take but I have, in various forms, been the "old guy" for the past decade or so and I've noticed a real change in behavior around 2016 or so. My suspicion in this crowd shift is that the barrier of entry for music consumption and, by extension, concerts has really lowered. Even throughout the 00's, if you wanted to go see a band there was a fair amount of investment in terms of time and logistics. Additionally, pop music/hip-hop was still not usually featured in large scale festivals which meant that most festival-goers were the types who usually attended 10-20 live events a year. With pop and hip-hop, rightfully so IMO, getting more recognition and space at festivals, I think these events attract more casual music fans who haven't come up through the ranks of going to club/theater/arena shows and, thus, maybe not be as well as adapted at attending events of this scale.
By no means am I trying to illustrate a point where certain fans are more DESERVING to attend said festivals but more of a change in music fan type and genre. This coupled with a lack of preparedness from security/event staff added to a performer whose whole brand is wild and chaotic shows, it's a recipe for disaster. I also think that festivals really need to stop having unopposed headliners as that will mean 50k people all trying to get a view at one stage (a la Billie Eilish at this year's Governors Ball). I understand that many acts won't want to take that slot opposed to the headliner but I think it'll encourage festival bookers to get more creative in appealing to various types of music listeners.
Post by Vic Vinegar on Nov 12, 2021 17:54:07 GMT -5
Just catching up here. Some good content but I’m really surprised to see so many posts blaming the crowd. There is a long list of people to blame before going after those in attendance. People are going to people. It’s on the organizers to create a safe environment where they can’t be put in that position in the first place.
Kind of a tough watch, but I’d recommend checking out the 30 for 30 “Hillsborough”. It gives some pretty good insight into how these types of things can happen.
1:45 & 2:58 Chile fans of RATM waiting 20 years for their only tour there. Opening song has the biggest mosh pit I've ever seen on video.
People jumping up and down in unison isn't a mosh pit.
0:30. It is when 5,000 ticketed rear pit fans and 10,000 ticketed seated fans decide they want a closer view. Morello singled out this show as the craziest crowd they he's seen.
RATM did stop a 2008 Lolla Chicago show for a crowd control breather.
I know hindsight is 20/20 but barricades being on 3 sides of a crowd that isn't regulated by size seems like a bad idea.
Hopefully a lot is learned from this tragedy for festivals and shows in the future.
Toronto 2003 Sarstock with 400,000 on an airfield for 1 day to see Stones/ACDC/Rush/and a ton of other stuff.
Astroworld issue was really bad barricade design with pressure points. I'm also floored by the tik tok clips of those having great difficulty exiting via the camera pit 45 minutes before he hits the stage. You don't need 2 big guards to pull out a petite girl out of a crowd.
Fan waiting all day by his stage for only 1 set is a weird for a festival. He's the cancelled day 2 set times that only gave Earth Wind and fire 30 minutes.
