On November 5, 2021, over 50,000 fans headed to the Astroworld Festival at NRG Park in Houston for what should have been a great night of live music after nearly two years of COVID restrictions. Instead, 10 people died— including a nine-year-old child—and thousands more were injured when the crowd surged forward as Travis Scott took the stage.
Thousands of lawsuits have been filed over the festival, all begging the core question: Were the injuries and deaths at Astroworld a tragic accident or a predictable and preventable catastrophe?
Scores of victims of the Astroworld disaster (the plaintiffs) are suing Scott and companies tied to the event (the defendants) in Harris County, Texas.
At the request of attorneys from both sides, all of the pending Astroworld lawsuits were consolidated into "multidistrict litigation" (MDL). District Judge Kristen Hawkins will oversee the pre-trial logistics for all of the consolidated lawsuits (In re Astroworld Litigation). Some cases may then go to trial, one at a time.
Consolidation like this is common in cases involving similar harms suffered by many plaintiffs. For example, asbestos litigation and other product liability lawsuits are often consolidated into MDL. Consolidation encourages the parties to settle their cases and save resources.
We probably won't know the outcome of the thousands of Astroworld lawsuits for years. And, fortunately, mass casualty events at concerts and other events are rare. But after the chaos at Astroworld, people are asking, "Who is responsible for crowd safety at concerts, sports events, and other large gatherings?" "Do audiences attend at their own risk, or do event organizers have a duty to keep them safe?"
Lawyers representing injured concertgoers tend to sue a lot of people and entities related to the event, including:
Other potential defendants might be public relations firms, record labels, utility companies (for example, after a fire at a venue), and streaming services that broadcast concerts.
The Astroworld tragedy is an example of one type of risk that concertgoers face: inadequate crowd control. Before Astroworld, one of the deadliest crowd-control disasters at a concert in the United States was the 1979 crush outside the doors of a Cincinnati show by The Who, which killed 11 people.
Examples of other hazards fans might face at live music events include:
To win a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against concert promoters, performers, and venue owners, you have to prove that they were negligent (careless).
The fact that you were injured at a concert doesn't automatically mean that the artist headlining the festival was negligent. For example, if you slipped on the floor of the bathroom at a concert and broke your leg, that doesn't mean the lead singer of the band was negligent. But the venue owners might be considered liable (legally responsible) if they knew or should have known that the floor was unreasonably slippery and didn't fix the problem.
Let's take a closer look at the different theories of liability in the Astroworld lawsuits and concert injury cases like it.
To prove negligence, plaintiffs have to show that another person or corporation owed them a duty of care in the situation that led to the injury. Plaintiffs in the Astroworld lawsuits claim that Scott and other defendants had a duty of care to ensure a safe concert.
Plaintiffs also have to show that the defendants violated (or "breached") the duty of care that they owed. The Astroworld plaintiffs allege that the defendants failed to, among other things:
Astroworld victims argue that the defendants were clearly negligent because they:
In general and in the Astroworld cases, plaintiffs must also prove that what the defendants did (or didn't do) caused the plaintiffs' harm. They also have to show exactly what that harm was—for example, broken limbs and severe emotional distress (called "damages").
The Astroworld plaintiffs aren't just saying that Travis Scott and others were negligent. They are alleging that the defendants were grossly negligent. Gross negligence is a more extreme form of ordinary negligence. It goes beyond carelessness to include reckless, unreasonable, or even willful (intentional) misconduct.
Proving gross negligence typically increases the amount of money plaintiffs get from defendants (damages), and might even allow plaintiffs to collect additional, punitive damages. Punitive damages are supposed to punish defendants for outrageous behavior rather than compensate plaintiffs for their losses.
Special rules that are part of a legal theory called "premises liability" come into play in personal injury cases involving injuries caused by an unsafe condition on someone's property. In the Astroworld tragedy, plaintiffs are suing the owners of NRG Park, where the festival took place, under a premises liability theory.
Property owners, including concert venue owners, typically have a duty to exercise reasonable care in how they own and maintain the property to keep people who enter it safe. Premises liability typically comes down to whether the unsafe condition was foreseeable (relatively predictable). After that, the question is whether the precautions taken by the property owners were a good enough protection against the risk.
In press releases and legal filings, the Astroworld defendants are laying the groundwork for their defenses to the thousands of lawsuits they face.
In March 2024, Scott filed a motion to remove himself from the Astroworld lawsuits, arguing that he was merely an onstage performer who wasn't responsible for keeping the audience safe. As a performer and promoter, he denied responsibility for venue security, safety, or site layout decisions.
Scott's motion follows a similar motion by Drake, who briefly joined Scott on stage during the deadly concert, but denied having any knowledge or involvement in the site design, layout, security staffing, or emergency procedures.
After a round of court hearings, Judge Hawkins dismissed Drake from the Astroworld lawsuits in early April 2024 but declined to dismiss Scott. The first lawsuits are scheduled to go to trial on May 6, 2024.
Defendants in concert injury cases typically try to shift blame to the injured plaintiffs (or point the finger at each other). For example, Astroworld defendants might argue that some concertgoers jumped over barricades and security gates. Others were aggressive and drunk or high on drugs. Texas follows a modified "comparative negligence" rule. If plaintiffs are partially to blame for the accident that caused their injuries, the compensation they receive is reduced or potentially barred altogether.
Defendants facing personal injury lawsuits related to concerts (and other activities like sporting events and paintball-style games) often argue that the injured person "assumed the risk" of getting injured by agreeing to participate in an activity that they knew was potentially dangerous. Some concert tickets include an "express assumption of risk" waiver that basically says you can't sue if you are injured at an event. But these express waivers often don't actually fully shield defendants from lawsuits.
Lawyers for the Astroworld plaintiffs are asking for billions of dollars in damages. The amount of money each victim might get will vary from case to case. Damages are typically based on:
Damages for the survivors of the young people who died at Astroworld would also include things like funeral expenses and, potentially, loss of consortium (loss of the intangible benefits—care, affection, nurturing—that a spouse or child provides the family).
Astroworld plaintiffs are also seeking punitive damages (called "exemplary damages" in Texas), which are meant to punish defendants and deter similar conduct in the future.
Given the sheer number of plaintiffs, attorneys predict that Astroworld settlements and judgments could reach hundreds of millions—or even billions—of dollars.
On December 22, 2021, Congress launched its own investigation into the deaths of the 10 young concertgoers.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform sent a letter to Live Nation, asking the company to provide details about security measures for the festival including how Live Nation prepared for the festival, responded to the crowd surge, and the precise time promoters learned that authorities had declared the concert a "mass casualty event" and when the concert ended.