On Nov. 5, rapper Travis Scott headlined the third iteration of his trademark music festival Astroworld at NRG Park in Houston, Texas. The annual festival had been canceled the year before due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During his performance, 300 concert goers were injured as the result of a massive crowd crush, 25 of whom had to be hospitalized.
As of this writing nine concert goers ranging in age from 14 to 27 have died from their injuries. Two remain hospitalized in critical condition. Including an 11 year old, in a medically induced coma.
In the days after the event, promotional images from the concert, as well as its tagline, “see you on the other side” have fueled conspiracy theories amongst religious groups that the tragedy at Astroworld may have been an intentional satanic ritual. A blood sacrifice.
I chatted over zoom with Diego Reynaga, a Chicago native who attended the November 5th concert. On the issue of whether or not the concert had been a satanic event Reynaga said that he found those rumors to be absurd saying, “After hearing them I couldn’t control my laughter. I just found it so silly that people think he’d (Travis Scott) would sacrifice nine people and have to deal with that negative publicity. It makes no sense.”
Regarding the panic around the concert slogan, “see you on the other side” Reynaga explained that the slogan is merely a reference to Travis Scott’s upcoming album “Utopia.”
Another aspect of the event that fueled rumors of a satanic sacrifice was Travis Scott’s choice to continue playing despite the mass casualty in the audience. Reynaga explained that ambulances had been coming and going all afternoon. Assisting concert goers suffering from dehydration and exhaustion. As such the presence of ambulances that evening didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
He went on to say that due to crowd noise and the raucous nature of the event, many did not even learn of the mass casualty incident until seeing media coverage of it the next day.
When asked who was at fault for the tragic event, Reynaga placed the blame on the concert’s promoter Live Nation for hiring what he described as subpar security. saying , “from my perspective security seemed a little lacking.”
He explained that he saw many general admission concert goers sneaking into the VIP sections. He also observed that some security guards were more concerned with recording the concert than doing their jobs. However Reynaga went on to say that he was hopeful that the tragedy would force Live Nation to enact stricter protocols and hire better security.
Of course the baseless allegations that Astroworld was a satanic ritual are nothing more than an attempt to rehash the moral panic around satanism that was prevalent throughout the 1980s and 90s. I get it. Conspiracy theories are fun to read about. They make you feel smart and enlightened. But as we’ve seen with QAnon these last four years, salacious allegations made with zero evidence can have very dangerous real life consequences.
In this case blaming the Astroworld tragedy on satanism is dangerous because it hurts the families who lost their loved ones at the concert, and it shifts the blame from the real life problem that led to it. A billion dollar company (Live Nation) made the decision to cut corners in order to save a few bucks, and ended up costing the lives of nine people just trying to have a good time.