I went to a concert last Friday. It was a pretty small venue, nothing too fancy, and not overly crowded. I was right in front of the stage, up against the little barrier set up to provide a space between the crowd and the stage that photographers could traverse through.

It was a great concert. Shakey Graves rocked the house, and the energy in the theater was electric. 

I had plenty of space to breathe.

Perhaps it’s unfair to draw comparisons between such a small venue and Travis Scott’s recent “Astroworld” event, but in being so close to the stage, I couldn’t shake the dreadful thought that at any moment, the hundreds of people behind me had the potential to suffocate me to death.

At the time of writing this, the tenth victim of the “Astroworld” fiasco, in which hundreds of people were seriously injured due to crowd crush (when people are packed too tight to be able to breathe), has been announced dead. He was nine years old. My initial reaction was, “who would bring a nine-year-old to a Travis Scott concert?” before I realized that was a huge leap of judgment, and that there’s no reason a nine-year-old should be crushed to death. 

Obviously, a huge amount of blame is to go towards Travis Scott. There’s clear evidence that shows him aware there’s a situation in the crowd and instead of stopping the music for a moment, he keeps going. The man clearly feels no remorse, either; I haven’t come across a worse apology video than Scott’s terrible black and white Instagram apology where he rubs his face a lot like he just got out of bed and can barely bother to open his eyes and look at his audience. 

A huge amount of blame should go towards Live Nation, who allowed for such atrocious conditions they were wholly unprepared for. There’s no reason a cameraman can’t stop filming his Livestream for one moment to hear out a man in distress, and there’s no reason Live Nation couldn’t delay, postpone, or cancel the concert when they realized the venue was too packed.

There’s a number of lawsuits against Scott right now for allowing such disastrous conditions at his show, and I imagine for the most part they will be settled out of court and then that will be that. It would be nice to see Scott face more serious consequences for this, but given his social status, I don’t see it happening. 

I want to say that instead, perhaps it should be left to the crowd to ensure they aren’t creating an unsafe environment for each other. Concert crowds, mosh pits, they are supposed to carry a certain edicate. If someone falls, you pick them up.  It’s so easy to fall under the “it’s X’s fault for coming” umbrella out of convenience, but sacrificing someone’s life isn’t worth the displeasure of stopping a song a little early. 

I want to say all of that, but come on, Travis.