Rapper Travis Scott Faces First of Several Lawsuits Over Fatal Astroworld Concert in 2021

The first trial stemming from the deadly 2021 crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival is set to begin next week, with the family of one of those who died at the festival suing a rap superstar, Travis Scott, whose real name is Jacques Bermon Webster II.A lawsuit brought by the family of one of the 10 people who died at Astroworld, Madison Dubiski, will be the first case to be tried over the tragedy.Dubiski, then 23, died from compression during the sold-out festival. During the festival at NRG Park at Houston, Texas, eight people died during a crowd surge and two more attendees died after being rushed to the hospital. Hundreds were injured. Those who died at the festival ranged in ages between 9 and 27 years old.Attorneys for Mr. Webster attempted to have hundreds of cases against him dismissed, arguing earlier this month that the artist was not responsible for safety planning or monitoring at the festival. Instead, attorneys argued that the artist’s responsibilities were limited to creative aspects of the event.Yet a state district judge, Kristen Hawkins of Texas’s 11th District Court, denied Mr. Webster’s request last week, allowing the cases against him to proceed.The attorney for Dubiski’s family argued that Mr. Webster had demonstrated a “conscious disregard for safety” at the festival, saying the artist encouraged people without tickets to the concert to break in and ignored safety concerns that were raised when the crowd surge began.Other defendants who were initially named included another rap superstar, Drake, and a handful of other companies involved with the festival, including Apple, Live Nation, and ASM Global, which operates NRG Park.A grand jury at Harris County, Texas, declined to indict Mr. Webster and others involved in planning the festival last summer. The grand jury’s decision came shortly before a more than 1,200-page police report detailed the events of the night of the deaths. According to the report, police interviewed Mr. Webster in the days after the tragedy, and the rapper said that everything seemed normal in the crowd that night. “Travis described the crowd as people who were having fun, celebrating, going through the barricades, smiling, putting up their phones to record,” the report said.Yet police concluded that the festival was overcrowded hours before the show began and that the crowding became increasingly dangerous as the show started.One security contractor at the event, Reece Wheeler, sent text messages that night to the festival’s director of security, Shawna Boardman, saying, “This is bad.”“Pull tons over the rail unconscious. There’s panic in people eyes [sic]. This could get worse quickly,” Mr. Wheeler said in a text. “I know they’ll try to fight through it but I would want it on the record that I didn’t advise this to continue. Someone’s going to end up dead.”The Apple livestream of the concert also shows Mr. Webster stopping his performance multiple times when people in the crowd passed out or required medical attention.Houston Police arrived at the concert in response to reports of a mass casualty event by about 9:40 p.m., though the show continued until about 10:15 p.m. Before the show was stopped the crowd broke into a chant of, “Stop the show.”In a statement released the next day, Mr. Webster said that he was “absolutely devastated” by the events of that night. So far, at least four families have reached settlements in their cases.Neither the attorneys for the Dubiski family nor Mr. Webster immediately responded to requests for comment.

Rapper Travis Scott Faces First of Several Lawsuits Over Fatal Astroworld Concert in 2021

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