Worst ever festival line up?

Jason Huckabay, who is described in his LinkedIn profile as a Houston-based security director for CSC, said in public Facebook posts that he oversaw a security team at the event. On Friday, Huckabay posted criticisms of festival attendees even as the event was in progress.

The day after the event, Huckabay said in another Facebook post it was “sad that all those kids inside died and others are still in the hospital because this generation has no value in other peoples lives.” He said his guards had spent 10-hour shifts trying to stop “waves of dumba---s breaking down fences trying to rush in,” adding: “A lot of these idiots were from 15-22 in age.”

Reached by phone Monday, Huckabay declined to comment, citing advice from an attorney.

seeing the footage of travis pushing away the two worried-looking entourage dudes who tentatively approach him onstage before immediately going back into 'lets all rage' mode is chilling. obv live nation is responsible in basically all of the most important ways, but travis did not exactly cover himself in glory here.

Yeah, I'm not exactly ready to free him of any blame at this point. Obviously there were a huge number of failures along the way that went into this, but I don't think Scott shouldn't share in some of the blame himself. When he saw ambulances trying to get through the crowd, he was absolutely the one person powerful enough to at least pause the show for a minute. There's dozens, if not hundreds, of examples being shared of bands and artists stopping their show then they see shit isn't right in the crowd.

Saw a clip of him, like, sic'ing the crowd on someone who tried to steal his shoe when he jumped into the crowd. Yeah, not a good look.

(from a prior show, not Astroworld)

I went to the first (or second?) Who show after Cincinnati, and forget how many times Townshend stopped the show to get the main floor crowd (also general admission) to settle down, and it worked.

One thing I learned from the different articles posted was that--unlike comparable festivals--they weren't alternating sets between stages: all the prior acts were performing on the other side of the lot, and Scott's headlining set was the only thing happening on the mainstage. So you've got people basically camping out all day in front of that stage, and then everybody else feeding into that area after stuff wrapped up on the second stage, which just doesn't sound good.

i have see the “at punk/metal shows we pick each other up” take on tumblr and neanderthal otm it struck me as frankly both wrong and fucking racist

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 8:21 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is unequivocally true. However I will concede that there may be some difference in how Travis in particular (not his fans or genre) runs his shows. Punk and metal and the first waves of mosh rap (Onyx, Lil Jon, Odd Future) all had that support system built into it, passed down through the rules and regulations of 40 years of slamdance culture. Travis in particular seemed to have adopted the chaos and anarchy and violence but none of the self-regulation. There's been absolutely no shortage of ppl posting videos of rappers doing the "OK, everyone cool it, help that person, etc"

Though obviously the blame is ultimately on Live Nation

I went to the first (or second?) Who show after Cincinnati, and forget how many times Townshend stopped the show to get the main floor crowd (also general admission) to settle down, and it worked.

― henry s, Tuesday, November 9, 2021 11:41 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The first show after Cincinnati was the very next night in Buffalo, then Cleveland two nights after that. I remember reading that the third show after Cincinnati (Pontiac Silverdome) had some worrying moments where Townshend and Daltrey tried to calm the crowd. Townshend has said in retrospect he wishes they'd stopped the tour and broken up the band after Cincinnati.

do think you're right Whiney in that there is a definite difference between how the *artist* comported himself versus other artists in this and other genres.

I'm definitely holding Travis somewhat liable for this because he has created a culture of chaos and even though he may have ultimately not known the entirety of what was going on out there, there are videos that shows he was aware people were getting hurt and in serious condition.

in either case, though, watching my dumb metal friends hi-fiving about how this would never happen at their show lead me to actually lecture one of them this morning. this isn't a mosh pit, it's a crowd surge, the dynamics of which are completely different. most metal shows are so sparsely attended that something like that *couldn't* happen, and lots of the more famous overseas festivals have adopted the appropriate measures to prevent these types of things.

xp it was the Silverdome show.

The crush at that Cincinnati show occurred prior to the event, when the doors were first opened and the fans rushed in to snag their seats. The situation in Pontiac was the same, except the venue was probably twice as big. And there were no attempts made (that I could see) to mitigate the rush or otherwise slow the crowd down as they ran in. Which even to a high school kid back then seemed pretty irresponsible.

That's fucked up, and yeah, that place is massive.

the big problem at the Who show was they opened doors late, when they did open them, they opened two whopping doors, and by the time it was 4 hours after door time, people heard a soundcheck or a soundbyte from the Quadrophenia movie and flipped out thinking the concert was started and with only two doors open...yeah, you get the picture.

basically "don't do things that can contribute to mobs rushing in" , like holding them in small crowded waiting areas or being late to doors for several hours. all of these things contribute.

bear more responsibility than, say, Limp Bizkit did for Woodstock '99 (the comparison Breihan makes)

does he mention the teenage girl who was crushed to death at a Limp Bizkit festival set in Sydney in 2001, when Bizkit refused the security guards calls to stop playing?

No – here's the reference:

By that same token, I’ve seen a lot of commentary about Travis Scott that reminds me of a certain moments in the recent Woodstock ’99 documentary. In the movie, festival co-promoter John Scher attempts to blame all the disorder and sexual assault at his festival on the victims of assault and on MTV for covering the show critically. He also tries to pin things on Fred Durst for whipping the crowd up too much. But Sher’s the one who booked Limp Bizkit to play and who set up an environment where a Limp Bizkit set could turn into dangerous bedlam.

So by comparison – no one "booked" Scott to play here (it's his show), and he undoubtedly could have exercised a certain degree of control over the crowd environment if he built a $5mm stage for his performance.

re: the Pontiac Silverdome Who show, listening to it now on youtube and about 13 minutes in Townshend says, "If something happened tonight we just fucking wouldn't be able to face ourselves ever again."

xxxxp

Durst started attacking the promoter on-stage at the Sydney show, who then took over the mic himself and asked people to calm down and move back. Durst arguing with him somehow did not encourage people to calm down and move back.

I will never defend Fred Durst, he made that terrible Stalker movie with Travolta

also that story from sic does not surprise me, at fuckin' all. fuuuuuck Fred.

B-b-b-b-but, Neanderthal, we're all supposed to love Fred and Limp Bizkit now, didn't you get the memo?

To be clear, I'm not defending Durst for any crimes, just pointing out that the Woodstock '99 comparison made by Breihan doesn't make sense.

But Travis Scott didn’t kill eight people. I would put that blame elsewhere.

No one lined people against a wall and "killed" them; there were various degrees of negligence involved. Hpefully the investigation and lawsuits will get at the specifics. Breihan wants to let Scott off the hook and place all the blame on the "promoters." I get the impulse of being wary about blaming an artist, but it doesn't seem to fit here.

Yeah, I was just adding another note of that comparison seeming off-base.

xpost you should see stan Twitter, all saying this is normal for big shows. you just let 10 or more people die, it's good business.

the big problem at the Who show was they opened doors late

That's a good point. At least at the Silverdome they opened the doors very early, like 3 in the afternoon. So anxiety levels weren't as high as they could have been.

reading the contingency planning docs makes live nation look even worse

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21100364/cnn-astroworld-operations-plan-redacted.pdf

Notify Event Control of a suspected deceased victim utilizing the code “Smurf”. Never use the
term “dead” or “deceased” over the radio.

Not at all shocked to know they'd use a code word, of course, but, really? "Smurf"?

"man get over here, this dude is totally smurf"

"They're smurfing each other to death over by Tower Three!"

smurfed as in turned blue i suppose :(

She's smurfy. Wrapped in plastic.

unperson, I believe that would be, "They're smurfing each other to smurf over by Tower Three!"

smurfing in the name of

crowdsmurfing

the smurf thing is the most obviously grotesque thing, but the multiple supposed structures that were to be in place were almost 100% not implemented at all

Smurfin' USA

(sorry)

xpost nowadays it's sufficient to talk about the things you're going to do, but apparently you don't have to actually do them.

Finner discusses comments he made about security guard who might have OD'ed - said he was struck in the head. No one injected drugs in him.

— St. John Barned-Smith ⚔️ (@stjbs) November 10, 2021

smurf...code blue...meh

So if no-one was injecting drugs into strangers, is it still unusual that a lot of the fatalities were apparently due to cardiac arrest?

not when you're crushed and asphyxiating, no

all nine people at Rockskilde died of cardiac arrest

Neadnerthal otm, I keep seeing people conflating cardiac arrest with heart attack, which aren't the same at all. Not saying you Halfway, but esp on Twitter I keep seeing people saying, "don't you think it's suspicious that so many people had heart attacks??? there is more to the story we haven't heard".

i'm just struggling w/ why so many people I know literally don't get the mechanics of a crowd surge. like I get not everybody was the concertgoer I was pre-pandemic but it's like the feeling of standing with your feet not being on ground, lurching in both directions in a sea of people and trying to stay upright, with zero body autonomy.

and nobody's conducting the train, it's like a tug of war and nobody knows who is on either team

My wife says ppl on social media are spreading rumors about a satanic ritual being involved or something? JFC...

heh yeah that too. cos we need a Michelle Remembers 2 by winter

Oh yeah the social media discussion around this is absolutely deranged, on the level of middle-school rumors.