Travis Scott has announced that he will refund all ticket holders for his Astroworld festival, and has cancelled a forthcoming performance in Las Vegas.
The rapper’s annual Houston festival ended in tragedy at the weekend (November 5) when a “mass-casualty” crowd crush occurred during his set, leaving at least eight people dead with hundreds more reportedly injured.
In the days following the tragedy, Scott took to social media to make two separate statements: a brief, written one on Twitter and a longer video posted to Instagram, while the rapper has since been hit with three lawsuits relating to the crowd crush, with one filing accusing Scott, festival organisers Live Nation and ScoreMore and other parties of “negligence and gross negligence”. One suit also claims the incident was a result of “a motivation for profit at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety”.
Sources now tell Variety that Scott is “too distraught to play” his scheduled headline set at the Day N Vegas festival in Las Vegas on Saturday (November 13), while all ticket holders for Astroworld will be given a full refund.
In the wake of the Astroworld tragedy, tributes have been pouring in for the eight victims, with many attendees of Friday’s event returning to the festival site – the NRG Park in Houston, Texas – to lay flowers and pay their respects.
Yesterday (November 7), Kanye West made his own tribute to the victims of the tragedy, dedicating the latest iteration of Sunday Service to those who lost their lives, while Roddy Ricch is donating his fee for his performance at the festival to the victims’ families.
Experts have also weighed in on the tragedy, with some arguing that event organisers “weren’t prepared for the crowd they were going to get”. One expert, who remained anonymous, told Rolling Stone that they “don’t even want to speculate how difficult it’s going to be” for rap festivals in particular to obtain insurance in future.
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