Dangers of Large Rowdy Crowds: The Concert that went down and under
What are the dangers of going to concerts and concert public safety?
Astroworld Festival Unraveled in Chaos
According to CNN; https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/11/us/travis-scott-concert-houston-thursday/index.html on Friday November 5, 2021 the Astroworld Festival led to chaos. Ten people died that night and dozens of people were injured. During the concert, concert goers tried to stop the happenings but were ignored.
People were screaming in each other's faces, people were passed out on the floors, and most people were fighting for their lives. This is not what you see on a daily basis. The investigation will possibly take months or maybe years.
Here are some rules or guidelines people should know when you go to a concert.
When you go to a concert there should be some safety precautions that need to be taken. Police officers should look through your things a little to make sure there's no weapons or major drugs on you; there should be assigned seating on each person's ticket, and emergency exits close by for emergencies only. Also, go with a group of friends or family members. Never go by yourself.
The main thing is if you need help, call the police or dial 911. People need to be more conscious of what's around them. People need to make sure that your safety is the number one priority and so is your life. You can replace certain items but, you can never replace a life.
—Miranda A. Mistretta, Culinary Major, 2022
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The devastating AstroWorld Festival has been the cause of ten deaths and the victims ages ranged from nine to twenty seven. The nature of how the crowds of people began to push and shove created a frenzy. The people that were severely hurt were either victims of the trampling themselves or heros attempting to save others from the stampedes.
Evidence can prove that there were efforts from the crowd to stop the concert once some realized that people were injured. Many audience attendees chanted, “stop the show” but the event still continued and medics were not called to the scene at first. Everyone including the musicians (artists) and security who stood around and did nothing should be held accountable because the health and wellness of others was put at risk.
This is truly appalling that in this “new-age” of uncertain times there are still so many callous and heartless people that don’t care about the welfare of others. There is absolutely no excuse that there were no crowd safety measures in place to stop these situational possibilities. Prevention is always better than a cure and with more implemented security protocols, hopefully in the future this will never happen again.
One way an over-populated crowd can be controlled at a public event is to place some barricades in order to separate large amounts of people as well as having frequent and steady security in place within strategic areas to enforce safety and monitor the crowd. Most importantly, anyone that cares for their audience should pay close attention to their moods and concerns, so if the fans are calling for help or requesting a halt in the concert their needs should be met.
It is a simple effort to treat others the way you would like to be treated because this concept could change the world. We all will benefit if we have empathy for one another--iit goes a long way and the payout is monumental. So, let's understand each other for a change before anyone else gets hurt.
— Nadirah Thurston, Licensed Practical Nurse, Returning student
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The deaths and injuries that occured at Astroworld resulted from a lack of safety procedures. In order for concerts, festivals and other major events to run safely, some serious rules or policies need to be put into place.
There must be a policy that does not allow more than a certain number of people to attend major events. People who attend the events would be made to not stand too close to other people in case they or the people around them begin to become hyper and put others at risk of getting hurt.
More security and medical personnel must be present at these kinds of events. They would have lists with names of the concertgoers who bought tickets, and only those whose names match with the ones on the list would be allowed into the concert area.
The same applies to the employees working at the ticket booths. If guests were to refuse to provide other names they go by after an employee would not find them on the lists, they would be asked to leave the venue. If they were to refuse to leave, they would immediately be escorted out of the venue by security.
—Giulia Nichols, English Lit. Major, 2022
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Large Concert Culture, With Caution
The mass casualty incident that occurred at the Astroworld festival was a tragedy to be certain, but it is also nothing that hasn’t been seen before. Live events have existed for thousands of years across different cultures and purposes; communities are not alien to order and rules when entering areas with large crowds. With all those years of handling events of all types, from movie theatres to massive rock shows, organizers have toiled to find the proper safety protocols for attendees as they battle to control chaos.
Keep in mind that a crowd is a sea of people with individual minds making individual choices. One absolute certainty is that there is no way to truly gauge what will happen in a crowd when the event starts rolling and people get into the excitement. Event organizers create policies for events like number of entrances available, emergency exits, policies with emergency personnel -- like police, and staffing in proportion to expected attendance.
There are no absolutes in stopping crowd mayhem, only mitigations and hopes that the crowd flows with no trouble. With that in mind, it would behoove the event goer as well into taking precautions to ensure their own safety as well as the whole crowd. Being aware of your surroundings and knowing what your escape points are when events get out of hand are a starting point for a concert goer.
Even though the events are fun and exciting to go to, people can’t go to these events without taking precautions and event organizers can’t be lazy about their policies on handling casualty events when they occur. A deficiency of both is a true recipe for disaster to occur, almost a guarantee.
—Steven R. Ayala, Journalism, 2022
The Danger of Concerts
During a recent concert in Houston, Texas hometown rapper Travis Scott held his usually annual Astroworld festival. The devastating event caused at least 10 people to die while 100 others were injured. It is now raising questions on how to make sure that something like this no longer happens.
There must be strict concert protocols that must be followed in order to enforce our safety. According to Crowd surge protocol wasn’t mentioned in Astroworld operational plan | KTLA “In any situation where large groups of people are gathering, there is the potential for civil disturbance/riot that can present a grave risk to the safety and security of employees and guests”, the plan says. The key is properly dealing with this type of scenario is proper management of the crowd from the minute the doors open”.
If proper precautions were taken the young lives taken and injured at Astroworld could have been prevented. Because of the events that happened at Astroworld it has left many future concert goers scared, and traumatized from attending any festivals or concerts.
According to The Daily Illini, Isabelle Ramos, junior in LAS said she, and her peers were excited to hear live music again since COVID, but went on to say “ I wouldn't attend another festival until a couple of years from now”. Due to the Astroworld tragedy it has made an effect on how regular concert goers see festivals now. This event has invoked a change in the culture of future concerts.
—Jerelle Daniel,Journalism, 2023