A new lawsuit was filed relating to rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival that left multiple people dead and hundreds injured in 2021.
The suit, filed by Houston’s Arnold & Itkin LLP, represents 17 concert attendees that suffered personal injuries and emotional trauma from the music festival. According to the suit, 11 defendants are named, including Scott, promoter Live Nation, rapper Drake, Apple, and ASM Global LLC. The plaintiffs are seeking $1 million, claiming negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hinting, training, supervision, and retention.
“Tragically, due to Defendants’ motivation for profit, at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety, and due to their encouragement of violence, multiple people lost their lives, and scores of others were injured at what was supposed to be a night of fun,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit requests a jury by trial.
This is not the first time time Scott and Live Nation have been named in a lawsuit relating to Astroworld; there are currently 1,500 active cases against the pair. Over 900 of those cases claimed physical injury at the event, while 313 cited “emotional distress, pain, suffering and mental anguish.” The first trial from the lawsuits is slated to take place nearly two and a half years after the festival on May 6, 2024.
Earlier this year, Scott avoided an indictment by a Texas grand jury on criminal charges relating to the festival. The jury found that “no single individual was criminally responsible.”
Then, last month, the Associated Press reported that Scott participated in a deposition in Houston that lasted around eight hours, people with knowledge about the litigation said. The deposition is in connection to the hundreds of lawsuits filed against him.
The Astroworld tragedy took place on November 5, 2021, where 50,000 people were in attendance at NRG Stadium. During the event, 10 festivalgoers were killed, ranging from ages 9 to 27. Those killed had suffered compression asphyxia due to the crowd surge, which has been compared to feeling like being crushed by a car.
Scott is currently on his Circus Maximus tour — his first large-scale outing since Astroworld. The tour has already faced hardships; ticket prices crashed dramatically and price floors are propping up the poor sales. One of the shows was already called-off without reasoning.
