“Since 2006, 750 injuries and 200 deaths have been linked to events produced by Live Nation.”Īs this is once again debated in the wake of the Astroworld tragedy, it’s prudent to look back at how the parties involved reacted following that tragedy two decades ago.Ī complete rethinking of festival safety took place after what happened at Roskilde. (In 2010, 21 people died in Germany at the Love Parade Festival due to overcrowding of an access tunnel.) Since 2006, 750 injuries and 200 deaths have been linked to events produced by Live Nation, according to the Houston Chronicle. Several lawsuits have already been filed against Scott, Live Nation, ScoreMore, and other parties involved with the festival.īeyond blame is the question of actual safety at music festivals-a concert experience that has led to mass death tolls once a decade since the Pearl Jam incident in 2000. Some have questioned why the concert wasn’t halted at the first sign of unrest-officials have since said they feared a riot if they abruptly stopped the show-and what emergency protocols were in place in case of a situation like this. People have wondered whether there was adequate crowd control and security.
Videos from the festival have gone viral revealing the lengths fans went to try to get security’s attention as the situation escalated, climbing scaffolding to plead with camera operators and leading chants of “stop the show.” Those fans, though, have relished the rebellious energy of his shows, reveling in lyrics like “it ain’t a mosh pit if ain’t no injuries” from 2018’s “Stargazing.”ĭuring the deadly unrest on Friday night, Scott paused his performance as an ambulance moved through the crowd, before cajoling the crowd to “make this motherfucking ground shake” as he finished his set. The star has a history of inciting chaos, having twice faced criminal charges for encouraging fans to breach barricades and thwart security, and a video recently resurfaced of him in 2015 telling a crowd to “fuck up” a fan who stole his shoe. The latter question has stoked a finger-pointing battle: the aggressive, safety-thwarting concertgoers festival organizer Live Nation local officials and possibly ill-equipped, understaffed security and medical teams or Scott himself. In the aftermath of the Astroworld disaster, investigations have been launched and speculation has been sparked about why this happened, how it could have been prevented, and who is to blame. But, at a time of unanswered questions and a reckoning over just how inescapably dangerous music festivals may be, the Pearl Jam incident of two decades ago provides, at the very least, a litany of lessons-not to mention a roadmap for how an artist implicated in such a calamity and festival organizers can work together to ensure safety going forward. The comparisons between the two events are haunting and uncanny. What happened during Pearl Jam’s set in 2000 has been brought up frequently in recent days, following the tragedy in Houston.Įight died and at least 25 were injured following a violent and dangerous crowd surge during hip-hop star Travis Scott’s performance at the Astroworld Festival Friday night, the incident now also joining the ranks of worst death tolls ever at a music event. It was one of the deadliest events in rock music history, 21 years after 11 people died in a stampede at a 1979 The Who concert in Cincinnati.
A ninth succumbed to injuries five days later. All who agree say ‘Yes’ now.”Įight men died that night of asphyxiation. I will now count to three, and you will all take three steps back. Imagine that I am your friend and that you must step back so as not to hurt me. “What will happen in the next five minutes has nothing to do with music,” he said to the crowd. About 45 minutes into the set, security escalated concerns up the chain, eventually reaching Pearl Jam’s manager and then frontman Eddie Vedder, who stopped the music.
0 kommentar(er)
