There's been a lot of buzz about Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival.
Talk to any high schooler in Houston.
They're talking about this concert.
Astroworld!
We're young. We want to live life to the fullest.
It was a concert that you didn't want to miss.
It's a carefree world.
It's just anything goes.
Hey!
There's people that are just like you.
Yeah!
This is like a playground. Like, this is crazy.
Should've been the best day of our lives.
But it was the worst.
Folks are coming out, complaining of difficulty breathing.
Houston 911.
Help at the Astroworld concert, now, please! I need help!
Stop the show!
You go to a concert to have fun.
I never thought that I would see death.
People are dead and hundreds others hurt.
Police in the United States have opened a criminal investigation.
Victims were young, in their teens and 20s.
When looking at the evidence in this case,
I was shocked by what I found.
I never spoke about it before,
but we're doing this so that people will know the truth.
People don't die at festivals.
What the hell happened?
The world is starting to open up.
It's a beautiful thing for all music fans. Festivals will finally start to happen.
Something that, you know, is anticipated every year
and that's Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival.
We knew that it was gonna be big. Like, people are ready to party.
I was like, "He's bringing back Astroworld?"
I just thought I had to be there.
Travis Scott is my favorite rapper.
His music is very hype.
So I would listen to Travis before my games just to be ready to ball.
Basketball is my world, you know.
It is my ticket to college.
To see Travis get as big as he is today is, like, inspiring to me.
Move! I told you to back up!
I was like, man, someone who grew up in the same city as me…
Yeah! Travis Scott! Yes, sir!
…can take over the music industry.
Travis Scott!
It was like he was repping us.
Travis represents a lot for Houston.
Kids look up to him.
Houston has a little bit of everybody.
And I think that Travis, he brings people from all over together.
This week has been dubbed Astroworld Week
with Travis Scott holding events leading up to this weekend.
I'm Coco Dominguez at Minute Maid Park
where this is just one of the events
that is raising funds for the youth
ahead of Astroworld's third annual festival happening this weekend.
Houston!
I cover feature stories here in Houston.
So I feature anything that's buzzing.
I've been covering Travis for a long time. And he's a hip-hop rock star.
Just a kid just making it.
- Why give back to the community? - Man, it's the only thing to do.
What's all this if you can't bring it back to the community and share it with people?
And have fun, man?
He was born in the Houston scene, but he took it to another level.
Hip-hop has always been going against the system.
He was positioning himself
as that person to be like, yeah… ?an I curse? "Fuck the system."
Everybody, jump, jump back!
Pull out the zip Pull out the ride, yeah!
Travis Scott live is an experience.
Yeah! We so fuckin' high Upper echelon, yeah!
His fans are called ragers,
and they look at him like he's God.
Like he's the messiah of music.
Five, four…
Take-off!
That rager element comes from the mosh pits.
- Deep off in the main. - M&M
He tells people, "Yo, if you came to a Travis Scott show to look cool,
get the fuck out."
Because it's real. He wants you to turn up.
Fuck that! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce
Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!
You feel the energy off of him
because we feed into him, but he feeds into us.
- Everybody in this, say Astroworld! - Astroworld!
- Say Astroworld! - Astroworld!
You get an overwhelming sensation of, like, happiness.
Travis! Travis! Travis!
We're living in wild times right now.
People just want to be themselves.
He was in the right place at the right time
to fit in that pocket for people.
And then Astroworld Festival took him into outer space,
into the heavens, you know what I mean?
We don't get a lot of festivals in Houston.
There was a huge buzz about it.
Then he did it again at Astroworld Festival 2019.
Everything was bigger.
The artists were bigger.
2020 came, the pandemic happened.
The world shut down. Ah. We didn't get Astroworld number three.
And then he wanted to bring it back in 2021.
For the first time, this would be a two-day event
with a ton of artists playing across the two stages
and Travis playing the headline set.
All of us had been locked up for so long.
This was, "Let's go get it." It's about to go down.
Manny, want one?
We knew it was gonna be the biggest event in the whole year.
They had a great lineup.
You know, a boys trip is the best thing.
We had a group chat and we planned everything out.
- Outfits. - Shades.
Travis Scott had just dropped some new music.
So we were listening to that, getting ready to dance.
Our friend Rudy listened to every type of music.
Music was very important to us and connected all of us together.
We had gone to Astroworld two years before that,
but Rudy hadn't gone before.
And he was excited. He wanted to go and go. He couldn't wait.
This one looks really good.
Things opening up after COVID,
we were stoked like, "We're gonna to go."
There was nothing that we didn't want to do more than be at that place.
Before the pandemic,
I loved going to experience music.
I was super excited about going to Astroworld.
Like, "Oh my God! All this time, we haven't been able to see."
"And all this good music has come out and all these artists. We have to go."
I had just started nursing school.
I always wanted to help people.
Vaccination appointments! Please drive to Dodger Stadium!
Three weeks before Astroworld, I had just received
my license to practice nursing.
And what better way to celebrate than going to Astroworld Fest?
It was a concert that you didn't want to miss.
And you know it was gonna be fun.
There has been a lot of buzz about Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival.
Tickets for the festival sold out in 30 minutes.
This is the setup at NRG Park where Travis Scott will be performing.
I've gotten ready for Astroworld.
I'm so excited.
I'm from Houston, so we're going to get down right now…
- Show us what it's like to party! - Yes, sir!
Aw!
- We slept what, three, four hours? - Three hours.
You guys always get crazy.
Coming from a small town,
going to a huge city, seeing all these artists
I never thought I would see in my life.
We were just so excited to go.
We got the wristbands.
- Yeah… - Yes, sir.
We all met up early in the morning. Just hyping each other up before the day.
It was my girlfriend Mikaela.
Her friend Bri.
She liked Travis, and I was like, "Oh! Common ground."
Bri was just excited to see Travis and enjoy the show.
I flew out for Astroworld from LA.
I really wanted to see Roddy Ricch.
I was really excited to see SZA.
Earth Wind & Fire, Bad Bunny, Houston's Don Toliver,
and even Master P are expected to be there.
Good luck if you don't have a ticket, because the show is sold out.
Headed to Astroworld, man. We got this, y'all. We out.
When I heard that Astroworld 2021 was happening,
I immediately reached out to our team
and was like, "2021, are we back?"
"Because I'd like to be back."
I shot all of the previous Astroworld festivals along with other photographers.
My entire career changed once I was hired for Astroworld.
Because it proved to Live Nation
that I could be a part of the festival team.
They hold so much of this industry in the palm of their hand.
If you're working in live music,
there's a really high chance that you're working for Live Nation.
So by talking about what happened at Astroworld,
I know that I'm jeopardizing my career, ultimately.
Astroworld 2021, it was a Live Nation concert.
Live Nation is the driving force
in the live entertainment industry globally.
Live Nation works with the most iconic artists in the touring world.
Concerts, festivals,
artist management, and ticketing.
They're running the game.
We're the largest concert company in the world by far.
So we think the festival business is incredible business.
There's a boom going on in America. Highest margin piece of our business.
So think of us as Disneyland for live.
Going into Astroworld, hearing that Live Nation
is working with Travis, was like, "Oh, all right."
He's valuable, he makes people money,
and he makes people feel good.
You can't beat that.
Live Nation are gonna see that,
and they're gonna be like, "Word, let's work with him."
"He's one of the biggest stars. Let's make this poppin'."
The morning of the first day of the festival,
I was shocked at how big the festival had grown.
There was a whole stage dedicated to just Travis.
It wasn't gonna be used all day.
We were instructed to lean into the fans and the chaos.
The promo video that they put out showed footage from 2019
of the fans breaking down the fences to get in.
Astroworld Fest in full swing but now with extra security.
We want to show you what it looked like
when the festival opened its doors today.
It was stressed to us that we try and match that energy,
showing how crazy it all is.
We got ready to shoot doors.
It's gonna be crazy. We know kids are gonna run in.
They're gonna try and get to merch or get on the barricade.
It was palpable,
the energy and the excitement.
We were working as security guards at Astroworld in 2021.
A friend of mine had made a post asking,
"Do anybody want to work the Travis Scott concert?"
I looked at my uncle like, "You wanna do it?"
I didn't know much about Astroworld. Just, you know, heard about Travis Scott.
I'm in the space where everything counts.
I'm 27 years old.
I got five children, and my finances gotta make sense, you know?
So I was blowing the number up.
Like, "Look, I'm all the way ready. I'm all the way prepared."
"If you're looking for somebody, I'm the guy."
This all happened in literally one and two o'clock in the morning.
The day before the concert.
They hit us back and told us to wear all black.
And be there for 5:30 in the morning, and we were there.
The only instructions that we had
came from other workers that was working with us.
And they were like, "Hey, they're gonna rush the gates."
"So y'all be ready."
It started immediately, as soon as they let the gates open.
And it didn't really stop.
Hey, they're rushing in.
Oh my God!
They in the festival!
Let's go.
We were going over the hill to hold the barricades
and try to stop everybody from bombing in.
These fans were little.
Slow it down. Stop!
But there's so many.
It didn't matter how big you were.
It was more than what I had bargained for.
Kids are gonna be kids.
Young people do young people stuff.
Doesn't make it right or acceptable, but I understand it.
Astroworld Festival paid for the Houston Police Department
to provide police security.
We don't have any control over the planning, the strategies,
security guards, any of that stuff.
We're there for law enforcement.
What was going on was so totally predictable.
There didn't seem to be any contingency plans or mitigating.
- Yes, sir! - Yeah!
They lost all control of the entry points.
People were getting in unticketed.
And it was just overwhelming chaos.
We worked on trying to just get some control over this situation.
Get the fuck back! Get back! Go. Go that way!
Travis Scott had developed a reputation.
We had seen crowd management issues at other festivals.
Yeah!
Straight from Mexico Call her Quintana
Come here, kid.
You tried to take my shoe?
You wanna be a thief?
Fuck him up!
Fuck that kid!
They're gonna catch you. Don't be scared. Don't be scared!
Five, four…
We want rage! We want rage!
Chaos in the crowds at Lollapalooza.
All the security, back the fuck up!
A performer is charged with causing the commotion
that sent fans over security barricades.
That type of energy requires a high, high level of planning.
Generally speaking, you don't want to go to a concert with me, you know.
Um, it's hard to turn off.
I provide public safety management in high-risk environments.
In an ideal scenario, we're brought on for the site design of an event.
More often than not, we're brought on
after some sort of critical incident has occurred.
In the aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy,
I was asked to work with Live Nation.
I wanted to look honestly at what occurred.
I was in receipt of a treasure trove of evidence.
This was not a case of missing red flags.
This was a case of ignoring blaring warning sirens.
I was shocked by… by what I found.
Travis Scott's much-anticipated Astroworld Festival is in full swing.
The event is two days
and is expected to attract tens of thousands of music lovers.
We're here at motherfucking Astroworld.
We're lit. I just broke two fingernails in the first hour.
Big Astroworld.
- Astroworld day! - Let's go!
Hey, we are here.
It is day one Astroworld Fest.
How many times have you been here before?
This is our first time.
- Where are you from? - I'm from Houston.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Who are you most excited to see?
Oh, my gosh. You go first.
A couple, but of course, Travis Scott.
It's a carefree world.
Hey!
Wanna walk around with your clothes off? Do it.
You can do whatever you want because you're in Astroworld now.
There's people that are just like you who are just like…
This isn't just a concert. This is, like, a playground.
This is crazy. I liked it a lot.
So it was Mikaela, Bri, and Talia.
They were all having a really good time because it was their first Astroworld.
Seeing the mountain, you know it's gonna be a good show.
It just gave you more of a rush. Like, "What does he have planned?"
So I was on assignment for Billboard.
I was walking around the festival. Everybody was enjoying the games.
Heave that ball!
They had a mini rollercoaster.
It felt like a theme park.
Where in the world but Astroworld Can you have so much fun?
Astroworld Six Flags in Houston was a legendary theme park.
All of a sudden it closed down.
Turn out the lights. The party's over.
Thirty-seven years of Houston history have come to a close.
Six Flags Astroworld has shut down for good this evening.
Then Travis came into the picture and started talking about it.
I grew up here.
I was inspired by Astroworld.
When they took it away, um, it kind of took a big piece of my heart away.
It ended up becoming his album.
You know, he kept building the lore of that.
That kind of awoken the kid in his fans.
The older you get, the more you separate from your adolescence.
With Travis doing that, he kind of brought us back to it.
We were so excited that we were in Astroworld.
So we took pictures everywhere.
I remember I was so excited I took a selfie in the porta-potty.
I was in the porta-potty, but at Astroworld.
I need to see that. That's funny.
We were flying in the air.
Rudy would always like, "Take me a picture!"
Find a spot. "Take me a picture."
He knew what trends were going on, what the vibe was.
He had all the swag.
Look at the stage.
Hey!
Astroworld!
You guys gotta get the merch! Get the merch! Yes, sir!
I was a really big Travis Scott fan. And I loved the energy it brings.
If you really love the artist and what they stand for,
you just want to represent them in any way you can, you know.
So we waited four hours in line for the merch.
It was under the scorching sun too. It was pretty bad.
I held onto my merch the whole time.
And I have a really bad habit of getting FOMO.
This is where Travis Scott's gonna perform.
- We're checking it out. - 8:45 we're gonna be right here.
So I just went immediately to Travis' stage, and I camped it out.
I said!
Skrrt, skrrt on niggas Skrrt up on niggas!
Skrrt down, you acting like me!
- She acting like… - Acting like me
SZA was so much fun.
I… I danced. I was singing my heart out.
Baby, hold me '?ause I like the way you groove
SZA is, like, finishing her songs.
We know the set is almost over.
Everybody, have a good night!
We see people kind of start to leave.
We follow the people.
- Let's go! - It's fucking Disneyland.
We're going to Travis' set.
Let's go.
I was like, "Let me make sure I get to a good spot for Travis."
You had to turn this corner.
And once you turned the corner, it was just boom.
I was just like, "Wow."
We sort of just followed that group of people, you know?
But that's when it started getting pretty hectic.
We lost each other.
Wow, this place is fucking dope.
When I agreed to work Astroworld, I was excited.
I thought I would just show up as a paramedic. Just walk around.
Enjoy some music,
make some easy money.
You know, because I've always told myself, if I have to do real paramedic work,
someone else is having a really bad day.
When we arrived at the stage, there was a countdown clock.
It was counting down until Travis Scott came out.
And I just remember thinking,
"We gotta get closer before the timer goes, so we can see him."
"It's gonna get crazy. You're gonna have a great time."
Okay, let's go!
So once that clock got up, it got a little bit tighter.
Yeah!
When it got to that last minute, it got even more tighter.
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
It's time to see Travis Scott. People were trying to get in the front.
Appreciate it.
We're trying to tell Manny and Marshall,
"Hey, we're here. Come with us. We got a good spot."
I couldn't get close to them.
It was so quick, so quick, that it just got packed.
Mikaela's looking at my face like, "Is this normal?"
Well, we're here, Astroworld.
I'm fucking dying out of breath in this bitch.
- And everybody else is dying… - Get him up!
And I'm kind of just like, "This really isn't normal."
Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…
The music started playing and everyone just…
You just felt your whole body just move forward.
Let's go!
Go! Go! Go! Go!
Twelve-figure estate plan That was the escape plan
But hate investigatin' That shit was a…
I stopped the facin' 'Cause shit just start erasin'
It opened gates And this shit just start paradin'
He came out to "Escape Plan."
Let's go!
It felt like an earthquake.
My body was jumping up like this.
It was wild.
And of course, he's giving that to his fans. He wants that back.
Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!
During that first minute, whenever Travis just entered the stage.
And then everyone's really hype.
And everyone's body moves forward.
And then the wave comes back.
It's stuck like magnets do I put you in that magnitude
I embrace the pussy I'm not tryna embarrass you
That was like being stuffed
into one little spot and just being squeezed.
Houston!
Yeah!
I'm like, "Oh, my God. I can't breathe."
"I can't take a deep breath."
It was full-blown panic.
I started to feel a certain fear.
That's when I feel like I was like, "Hold on. This is not okay."
She can't breathe!
I was center stage.
It's, like, secured area where they were supposed to be empty
to allow for medical personnel and security to get through.
People were already coming over the edge.
Give me your other hand!
That's typical in any concert that I've been to.
People get hot. They get tired. They pass out.
I didn't know it was gonna happen to this magnitude.
People just kept coming and coming.
When we got to the main stage situation,
it was crazy.
Anywhere you look, you seen somebody
either hyperventilating, changing colors, or that wanted help out of there.
I had helped out maybe 20 people
in my little section right there, just me alone.
I was positioned in the left-hand of the cross.
Once Travis was on stage,
I kind of just went into work mode,
like everybody else.
And tried to get my shots,
trying to do what I was told, which was lean into the chaos.
There were people wanting to come over the railing.
When I saw the condition they were in when they were coming over,
I… thought,
"It must be really bad up there."
It became overwhelming real fast.
And I remember thinking to myself, "What the hell is going on?"
One thing that was different about Astroworld 2021
was that Travis had kept his own stage unused all day until his performance.
This meant thousands of concertgoers moved to his stage at the same time.
Compounding this dangerous situation
was the fact that the concertgoers were approaching the stage from the side,
pushing into a T-shaped barrier system.
This was supposed to make the stage safer.
But instead, its configuration created a trap
on the left-hand side of the stage.
And so the compression just built and built
where people could not escape.
People were pushing left,
people were pushing right, to the back, to the front.
There was just no space.
I wasn't even, like, breathing right,
so I had to look up, trying to calm my breathing down.
It was a nightmare. That's the best way I could put it.
Well, Rudy was behind me the whole time.
Rudy told me, "I can't breathe, man."
And I just told him, "Try and relax, man."
"Just drink some water."
The crowd was swaying, and I was swaying with the crowd
because it was so tight I had no control over my body.
And I just remember thinking,
"Don't fall down because you won't make it back up."
Help! Please! Help!
One of those waves just hit both me and Bri.
We all fell to our backs.
I could hear her in pain.
You know, asking, "Help me get out," and stuff like that.
I was the second layer. There was people under me.
And then me falling on my back, and then people stacking on top of me.
And I felt like the more I kept fighting it,
the more I was wasting energy.
Like if you're holding your breath underwater.
I could feel the oxygen just leaving my body.
All those pains, all those panicking moments. Um…
I'm sorry, I just…
Um…
- Help! - I know! We're trying!
Help, help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!
Houston 911, do you need medical, police, or fire?
We're at the Astroworld concert.
It's getting really fucking dangerous.
It needs to stop.
- What are you reporting? - Everyone's piled on each other.
Wait, you're good.
Man. It was crazy, man.
There's people over here screaming for help.
But then you look to the right, and there's people having a fun time.
The rest of the people seemed to have no idea what was going on.
Bounce!
Everybody!
Help!
Help! Help!
Yo!
I don't know how long I was under there but it felt like forever.
And then people moved off of me.
I saw someone's face. They looked at me.
He pulled me out.
How am I gonna get up? Oh, shit.
And I just remember feeling so many different things.
Where's Mikaela?
Uh, did Bri get out?
I looked for Mikaela. I found her.
She was asking me questions.
"Where's everybody? You saw them get out?"
I knew where I saw Bri.
Anyone who was at the same level as me was not receiving oxygen.
I just remember kind of panicking in that moment, like, let's try to stop this.
I went up the ladder to get on the camera platform.
I was just yelling, "Stop the show."
- People are fucking dying! - Get the fuck down, bitch.
Y'all weren't in there, bro! Shut the fuck up!
Y'all weren't in there. People are fucking dying.
I'm trying to save somebody's life. That's somebody's kid.
- Two hands to the sky. - I want to save them.
Calm down.
I felt like nobody was on my side.
Except there was this one person. And then I was like, "I'm not alone."
- There's someone dying! - Stop the show!
Stop the show! Stop the show!
I felt like I'm helpless.
I knew Bri was in that area still struggling.
I just wanted to find some help.
Yeah
Custom the things Custom the wings
I had to custom the vibe
I get pulled to a patient that's on the ground.
And I cannot ascertain a pulse.
I need to start CPR.
I needed a life pack, a defibrillator.
I needed a lot of stuff.
I key up my radio, and I'm communicating with command center.
"I have a patient down. CPR is in progress."
They were a little shocked and taken aback.
Because they asked me to repeat, "Hey, did you say CPR in progress?"
They have to stop the show because there's people trampled.
They're not breathing.
Multiple reports of people being injured.
We have another report of a cardiac situation with CPR by the stage.
In the commotion, the pressure of people, I… I lost my balance, and I fell.
I fell on something. I fell on someone.
And I just remember feeling, like, pressure.
Like… Like… Like… Because people were falling on me.
Hey! Help!
I remember looking up
and just being like, "I'm gonna die here."
And then someone saw my hand.
And they helped me up.
And I had got myself together, and I'm still shocked
because I'm like, "What just happened?"
Around that time, people were starting to pile up
around me.
It almost made me feel like
I was going crazy,
like it wasn't actually happening, because surely, they would stop the show.
If it was as bad as it looked, they would stop the show, right?
Travis!
Travis Scott is playing this whole time.
I was in shock, I was shaking.
And at this point, I was like, "I have to be out there helping people
because I'm a registered nurse."
And there was this guy on the floor.
I do my assessment on him.
He has a pulse, but it's really faint.
I grab his legs, and I just remember putting them up.
I'm doing sternum rubs.
I was like, "I really hope this works. I really, really hope this works."
And then his chest went from not moving
to, like, rising and falling.
His eyes opened up.
Like, "He's breathing! He's breathing! He's opening his eyes!"
I'm like…"Okay."
I was fighting for my life at that point.
I was practically being suffocated to death.
What led up to me passing out was like a heart attack.
The doctors really had to explain to me what had really happened.
And I was like, "Holy shit, she, you know, brought me back to life."
"She was there for me."
And I'm like, "God bless her."
Yeah.
Oh, oh, oh…
Play it slowly. Somebody help him. Somebody passed out right here.
Hold on. Don't touch him.
Everybody, just back up.
There was a part where he stopped.
I was a few feet away from him.
Somebody jump in. Come on, security. Let's get in there.
Yeah
I remember seeing this kid being carried out.
Normally, you see people carried out,
they're all nestled in the person
or they got their arms or legs, and they're taking them out.
I've never seen anybody carried out the way that this kid got carried out.
Yeah
And it looked like Travis is trying to process it
and try to figure out what to do next.
Stop the show!
Standing in the ocean
90210, 90210
It felt like a horror movie.
You see people going like this. You can hear the screams.
You don't see this?
Then he goes back to performing.
And I'm like, "No. What are you doing, bro?"
Any key decision maker from police, fire, EMS or Live Nation
should have been able to very quickly initiate a show stop process,
what should have been as simple
as a literal or figurative button being pushed.
But what made it confusing
was that according to the event operations plan,
there were only two people from Live Nation
that had the delegated authority to stop the show.
We're only hearing what was coming through the police line.
They were looking for the manager from Live Nation,
trying to locate him and to either end the concert
or delay the concert, and they could not find him.
Stop the show! Stop the show!
Man…
New York City has birthed a lot of good people.
And this person was a really good friend of mine.
And he was going…
I've seen numerous artists stop a show.
And not just stop here or there, make sure somebody's okay,
but stop the show.
And nobody was doing that.
My bitch love coco
Yeah
Woo back, baby
Let's go, y'all
Let me see some
Okay, okay
You cannot say Pop And forget the Smoke
I'm from the Floss Where niggas tote
They couldn't be Crips
Droppin' the cho
I gotta laugh 'Cause these niggas jokes
They're like, who these niggas? Who these niggas? I don't know
Oh, what?
We eventually make it to the medical tent, and I continue chest compressions.
I ended up getting a pulse back, and we had vital signs.
We had blood pressure, which was great.
I have this, like, sense of relief where I can just…
…kind of rest and relax.
And when I look up to assess what's going on around me,
to my right, there's two other patients being worked on.
Behind me, there's another patient being worked on.
And if I look down the medical tent,
there were two more patients being worked on.
Anything can happen at the night show
At the night show
And the evidence shows that a manager from Live Nation
finally went backstage and talked to an audio engineer.
I have a transcript of what was said.
When Travis Scott performs,
that audio engineer has the ability to speak into his ears.
You know what?
We don't know what was actually said to Travis after that.
Houston, I wanna see the motherfuckin' rage, and Chase B…
But then, amid this chaos, a different conversation takes place.
This time between police and Live Nation,
allowing the concert more time.
And in that time, Drake comes on stage.
The police and organizers said they didn't want to trigger crowd panic
by stopping abruptly, but people were dying.
The idea of a performance continuing
while even one CPR in progress is underway
is insane.
Unprecedented.
Not to mention, multiple.
You a little Post Oak baby
You a little 48 baby.
Got a little candy in her pocket She gon' take off…
Of all the things that trouble me about this case…
that's one thing I can't get past.
How could they make that decision?
Houston, Texas! My name is Travis.
Everybody, I love y'all. Make it home safe.
Good night!
As soon as that concert finished,
it was so chaotic.
There was ambulances everywhere.
- Move! - Open up!
I immediately started calling Raul, calling Manny, texting the group chat.
I got the messages, "Where are y'all? Let's meet here."
Bro, look at this shit.
Got the helicopters everywhere.
Everybody started slowly getting there, but Rudy.
That was so strange to me because the whole time I had thought,
"Oh, he got out."
You know, he made it out safe.
But he's the only one missing. That's when I hit full panic.
I just started running towards the emergency and all the ambulances.
- Move! - That's what we're doing.
Move the fuck out of the way!
There was no sign of him.
So I start calling hospitals.
This hospital answer me.
They say that they do have someone under my friend's name.
There was no information due to us not being family.
So that's when I called Rudy's mom.
His friends called me.
And I tell them, "Where's Rudy?" They say, "We don't know."
Then I had a bad feeling.
But at the same time I said, "No, it's not possible. It can't be."
His older brother says to me,
"Mother, you have to go to Houston."
I tell his stepfather, "We have to go."
On my way, I kept saying, "Rudy has to be okay. He has to be fine."
This is a… a tragic night.
And we had scores of individuals that were injured here in this event.
If your relative, family member was at this event,
and you have not spoken to that individual,
go to the reunification center.
We will have units there available to assist.
We were frantically looking for Bri.
We end up finding out that Bri was getting rushed to the hospital.
Right when we get there,
her family
just starts crying like really, really loud.
We're thinking, "Oh, they're still trying."
"It's not over yet."
"There's still an opportunity for her to be saved."
So we're still waiting.
Waiting for some good news.
Until they come back and they're just, "Yeah, we can't do anything."
Everyone just, like, dropped to the floor.
I just remember crying…
and feeling like this is the worst night of my life. This is…
I felt defeated.
I thought I had everything figured out up until that point.
We arrived
at that address.
"Where is my son?"
"I want to see him."
I run into a cop at the door. He grabs me, and I say to him,
"Where is my son?"
"Is he okay?" And he says, "No, he's passed away."
So that's when I just lost it.
I was screaming.
What am I gonna tell his siblings? What am I gonna tell his friends?
What am I gonna say to my heart, to my soul?
They stole my light. They stole a part of my heart.
I couldn't bear it.
And so far, I still can't.
It's a pain that I don't wish on any mother.
If you're just waking up and haven't watched the reports,
we know that at least eight people are dead
and hundreds others hurt during opening night
of rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld.
So many unanswered questions right now like,
"What caused these eight people to die?"
It's really hard because I've been following Travis' fans
for a really long time.
You know, they're good kids.
We came back the next day.
It was an active crime scene with a large perimeter.
We had to secure the perimeter
and spent most of the day just gathering information,
take pictures and measurements.
At the time, we didn't know what had actually happened.
We had to investigate everything and kinda eliminate everything.
The next morning, we got a text from Live Nation
that day two wasn't happening.
And that we were going to have a meeting.
They didn't really touch on what had happened.
For me, it was more about not talking to the press,
not posting, not making any sort of public comment on it.
I just thought, like, they were trying to cover their asses
and make sure that we didn't say anything that could hurt them.
I want to send condolences to the family.
This is now a criminal investigation.
We leave no stones unturned.
A lot of narratives out there right now. A lot of them.
Someone allegedly injected a police officer with some type of substance.
…was injecting other people with drugs.
A bad batch of illegal drugs.
This narrative is going around that many people were on drugs,
and that's what caused this.
These people did not die from a needle in their neck.
That's not why what happened happened.
The answers are in front of you. We're telling you what happened.
Like, why are people not hearing us?
I'm waiting on Travis. I'm waiting to see how he plays this.
I want to send out prayers to the…
…to the ones that was lost last night.
You know, my mans… my fans like… my fans really mean the world to me,
and I always really want to leave them with a positive experience.
Anytime I can make out, you know, anything that's going on,
I'll stop the show and…
help them get the help they need, you know?
Um…
I could never imagine the severity of the situation.
An apology video, it was like a slap in the face
to me, to everyone who suffered.
Like it wasn't really like… You know, he made it because he had to.
"Oh, well, I'm sorry, guys. Catch you at the next one."
That's what the vibes were to me.
It just looked bad.
It looked really bad, and you didn't look like a superhero like you once did.
A 9th person has died
in connection with the Astroworld concert tragedy.
22-year-old Bharti Shahani,
a senior at Texas A&M, was declared dead last night
after being on life support since Friday's event.
The youngest victim crushed in the crowd surge
has succumbed to his injury.
Nine-year-old Ezra Blount has died.
He had been in a medically induced coma.
Ezra is now the 10th and youngest person to die from the disaster.
The more I see with all of this, the more damning all of it is.
He wanted this mob mentality chaos,
and it killed people.
A new development now, Nike is delaying the release
of a sneaker collaboration with Travis Scott amid the tragedy.
There is a petition circulating
asking that Scott be removed from the popular Coachella music festival.
You fail to provide a safe atmosphere at your show,
and your fans die right in front of you.
And you treat them as completely worthless.
There was so much noise around Travis
that eventually, he had no choice but to come out and defend himself.
People said they collectively heard folks screaming "help"
every time you stopped the song to get your attention.
Did you… Did you hear any of those screams?
Nah, man. And you know, it's so crazy because I'm that artist too.
Anytime you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show.
I just didn't hear that.
Was there ever any communication to you on stage that you should end this?
Well, yeah. They told me right after the guests get off stage,
"We're gonna end the show." And that's what we did.
Other than that, there was no other communication.
- So they didn't say, "Stop now?" - No.
- Nobody said, "Stop now." - Gotcha.
You know, a lot of the criticism from the tragedy,
they say is in the poor planning and understaffing of the event.
As an artist, do you have any involvement in any of that?
Well, I mean, as an artist, you just do the creative.
You know, I just can control what I can on the stage,
and you have the professionals control what they can in the crowd.
This notion that Travis had the ability
to stop the concert is ludicrous.
The only two people that have the authority to stop the concert
were the executive producer and the concert producer.
For so many to just think Travis is at fault,
you're creating a void for a lot of people that organized that concert
to step back and not even be in the light.
It's the first time I've been back.
I can see all of it.
I say whoever had any parts in organizing and putting it together
should be accountable.
Live Nation, you guys were in charge of this.
What was the failure?
49 lawsuits filed in Harris County
in connection to the tragedy
against Live Nation, Astroworld's promoter.
Rapper Travis Scott, Apple Music, and Epic Records
are among those facing a $750-million lawsuit.
One lawsuit claims the festival was
a "predictable and preventable tragedy."
We will make sure that they get justice
because this should have never, ever happened.
In the months afterwards, Live Nation got in touch with me.
I knew the venue. I knew the event. I knew the politics.
I could quickly make sense of what happened.
I was given text messages between executives to emails.
Documentation and site plans,
thousands of photographs and videos,
all of which have been made public.
I believe Astroworld 2021 was not an accident.
It was an inevitability due to the lack of foresight
and the abandonment of basic safety protocols.
To understand what happened,
you have to go back to the beginning.
Live Nation reportedly sold 50,000 tickets to the festival.
But these tickets were sold before they'd worked out
how this number would be able to safely view Travis' set.
Following the tragedy,
experts for the plaintiffs examined the evidence
and believed there was viewing capacity
for just 35,000 concertgoers at the main stage.
Which would mean they planned for many thousands more people
than could safely view Travis' performance.
And to compound that, the moment they lost control of the gates,
there's now an unknown number of people at the festival.
In the days leading up to the event, we can actually see text messages
between key members of this management team.
Expressing 50,000 people are not going to fit here.
They knew this was going to be an issue.
So not only was Travis' stage in danger of being over capacity,
this poorly designed site led to people approaching the stage from the side
and getting trapped in an area where they were crushed, unable to breathe.
All ten fatalities were caused by compression asphyxiation in this area.
Further text messages, sent just minutes before Travis got on stage
show that Live Nation was aware of the tragedy that was unfolding.
But they failed to act before it was too late.
In all the failures of Astroworld,
a common denominator is a failure to speak truth to power.
There were many missed opportunities to speak up.
Somebody to raise their hand and say, "Time out."
"This doesn't make sense. We're gonna hurt somebody."
It was just a sadness in our city because this is our festival.
You didn't have to know somebody to be affected
because it's affected, you know, our community.
My love for Travis was definitely at one point boiling hot.
But now…
Hate's a strong word,
but I just… I can't support that anymore.
For the first time in my life, I felt, like, true depression and true anxiety…
because I didn't think
I was more deserving of other people to make it out.
Why me and why not them?
Thank God I have another chance to live the life that I do now because of her.
- Oh, my God! - Hi!
- You scared me! Hey, Sophia! - Hi!
Oh, my God.
There's no way this happened, and we don't talk afterwards.
That we're not in each other's lives after all this just happened.
- There you go. You won. - I won!
You got the two out of three.
Fair enough.
Our connection is so strong. Like hopefully, we're… we're friends forever.
I'm just happy you're here.
I was 18 years old whenever Astroworld happened.
My life has completely changed from that moment.
Just the fact that Bri passed away
put me down, like, a dark depression.
I was gonna go to school because I was gonna play basketball.
And I just gave up on it all.
I think about that day all the time.
What I did too slow or what I wish I did first.
When I relive that moment, um, trying to change my actions,
hoping for a different outcome, but it's always the same outcome.
It could have been preventable.
It's still difficult to talk about our friend's passing.
- For Rudy. - For Rudy.
For Rudy.
We said that he brought people together.
After that, he brought even more people together.
The whole city.
His funeral was so big. Everyone was there.
Every day, I go to the grave.
They ask me why I go so much.
I say, "Let me live my pain."
It's the mother's pain.
Seeing my mom suffer every day
hurts us.
A lot.
Because we too are feeling that same pain.
As a family we share the same pain.
I say my prayers for him.
He knows
we'll see him soon.
I wish there were changes
because of what happened with Rudy and the other people.
I wish that now those artists who perform,
those owners of those companies were better.
So that what happened to Rudy doesn't happen to anyone else.
He always motivated us to reach for higher goals.
And if we were scared, he would say,
"Just do it, man. Don't be scared."
He deserves justice.
Someone should be accountable.
We don't ever want it to get lost
that Live Nation is the largest concert promoter in the world.
They do these every day.
We gotta be talking to the industry leader.
That's the only way you get change.
That's the only way we save lives.
We don't just point at the little people, we point at all of them,
and we don't let the big people get away.
There has to be some level of accountability that's industry-wide.
And that's not your stock price dipping momentarily.
That's not you missing out on sponsorship deals.
We have to learn from this. Otherwise, it'll happen again.
One thing that I find inspiring is
the young concertgoers
that stood up courageously
and advocated for one another.
Calling for action.
It's powerful.
Whoever cut the corners, that's who I hold responsible.
I need to see that these people get justice and that things change.
Will we ever get "I'm sorrys"?
I want people to listen. I want people to hear us whenever we say,
"This is not okay. This is not how concerts go."