EDITORIAL

"Nobody should ever die from going to a concert,” says Ben Crump, the attorney of hundreds of Astroworld victims. This statement results after 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries during Travis Scott’s November 5th performance at the Astroworld festival. Minutes into his highly anticipated performance, the crowd surged forward, causing many concert-goers to be suffocated and trampled. Despite the crowd’s cries for help, Scott continued to perform until 10:10pm, at least 40 minutes after the first sign of dangerous conditions in the crowds appeared. During this time, authorities classified the event as a MCI, or mass casualty incident, due to high volume of health crises including cardiac arrest and fainting. In a post about the event, Seanna, a concertgoer, recounted that, “people began to drown - in other people,” and that when she looked for escape, “there was nowhere to go.”

In response to the surprising tragedies, many concert-goers and media outlets have accused Scott of being negligent, filing lawsuits and demanding that Scott should be removed from upcoming festivals’ rosters. However, Scott claims to have been unaware of what unfolded below him in the crowd and has since released an apology video that has largely been criticized and mocked for being insincere. 

While these accusations of Scott have momentarily damaged his reputation, past events suggest that eventually these actions will be brushed aside, thus allowing Scott to continue to relish in his fame. In 2015, Scott encouraged fans to storm the stage barricades at Lollapalooza, and in 2017 he faced charges for a similar incident in which the crowd injured security officers. Despite these events, Scott remains ranked the twenty-second artist in the world on Spotify, with an estimation of over 45 million monthly listeners.

Currently, Scott, his team, and Live Nation, the organizers behind this event, are facing close to 400 lawsuits. Although Scott has denied legal liability in the Astroworld tragedy, the families of the victims, and much of the general public, want to see him held legally accountable for his actions. But his fan base has yet to diminish. ABC News defines Scott’s fanbase as “fervent” and willing to “do whatever to get his attention”. Therefore, Scott’s musical success has remained at the forefront of his public appearance, despite his questionable moral character. This widespread culture of “raging” arguably caused this Astroworld tragedy, prompting the consideration of a fan’s role in these events. By continuing to support Scott, fans actively dismiss Scott’s past actions and allow incidents such as these to continue. But how does one man’s music have the power to influence people to such an extreme place? The answer lies in the scale of the music industry.

Streaming services provide access to overwhelming amounts of music, appealing to the majority of the population for their seemingly diverse repertoires. In fact, according to Forbes, streaming services generate 84% of the total music retail revenue. However, this scaling of the music industry has not only impacted how people access music, but also the artists that are most listened to.

Often, streaming services tailor music recommendations to each individual listener. This might come across as providing a wider variety of artists a chance to be discovered. On the contrary, the services often recommend commonly streamed music, causing the development of enormous fan bases for already popular artists. This unprecedented scale of influence gives artists the power to influence masses, for better or for worse. So while an individual listener cannot cause a surge in a crowd, a mass of followers can. But only with the encouragement from their ringleader. 

Today’s artists are given the resources to cause widespread change. By continuing to give these artists those resources despite their questionable actions, we enable the idolization of musicians. Artists must be held accountable for their actions in this environment, or else we risk losing safe spaces to enjoy live music, as seen through the tragedies at Astroworld.