Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld concert ended in tragedy, leaving 10 people dead. Now, all eyes are on who will be held responsible, and after pushback from the promoter giant Live Nation, the company’s CEO Michael Rapino has now been ordered to sit-in for a deposition.
In a suit filed last year, representing 17 concert attendees that suffered personal injuries and emotional trauma from the music festival, Scott, promoter Live Nation, rapper Drake, Apple, and ASM Global LLC are named among the 11 defendants. The plaintiffs are seeking $1 million, claiming negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hinting, training, supervision, and retention.
Last week, Judge Kristen Hawkins ordered Rapino to sit for a deposition as a part of ongoing litigation, noting that the court found “Rapino has personal and direct knowledge of relevant information,” Complete Music Update reported.
“The court finds that Michael Rapino has superior knowledge of discoverable information and that he is the only individual with personal knowledge of the information,” Hawkins said. “The court finds that the information is not available through other source.”
While Live Nation’s lawyers reportedly tried to persuade a judge from forcing Rapino to take part in the deposition with the Apex deposition doctrine — aimed to stop plaintiffs in a lawsuit from immediately seeking a deposition with the bosses of any companies involved in a case — lawyers representing the plaintiffs showed a large file of correspondence between Rapino and those involved in Astroworld.
Live Nation’s attorney Neal Manne said that only six messages took place between Rapino and Astroworld organizers ahead of the event, the opposing attorneys found that Rapino conversed with Scott and other executives following the aftermath of the crowd surge, which included discussions to cancel the second day of Astroworld.
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs may want to question Rapino about the corporate structure of Live Nation, specifically whether or not Live Nation’s festival division C3 Presents saw the Astroworld site plan ahead of the event.
| READ: Travis Scott Says Safety Was Not His Responsibility at Astroworld |
This follows bombshell news that organizers had doubts about the festival’s capacity before the event. According to new filings obtained by the Houston Landing, the event’s safety director Seyth Boardman told the festival’s operations director he was worried about cramming so many people in front of the main stage to see Scott perform, noting, “I feel like there is no way we are going to fit 50k in front of that stage.”
Reports also found serious issues with the site plan; an employee of the event production company BWG settled on a site plan that made room for 44,000 people in the general viewing area, plus 3,500 in a VIP area. However, if they had used the correct seven square feet per person standard, they would have known the site plan had capacity for 32,000 people in general admission and 2,500 people in a VIP pen, which marks a whopping 15,500 short of ticketed attendance.
One of the most staggering statements regarding the safety of the festival was made by a festival dispatcher in the command center just minutes before Scott took the stage.
“I would pull the plug but that’s just me,” the dispatcher wrote in a message that was just made public last year. “Someone’s going to end up dead.”
