Travis Scott, Live Nation and other organizers of Houston’s Astroworld Festival are being sued by an attendee of the music festival where eight people were killed when the crowd surged toward the stage.
According to a report from Billboard, concert attendee Manuel Souza is suing Scott, in addition to Live Nation and festival organizer ScoreMore, alleging in his suit that the fatalities that occurred resulted from “a motivation for profit at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety,” as well as the “encouragement of violence.”
The suit argues that Scott and the other defendants “failed to properly plan and conduct the concert in a safe manner. Instead, they consciously ignored the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers, and, in some cases actively encouraged and fomented dangerous behaviours,” describing what took place as “a predictable and preventable tragedy.”
In addition, Souza’s lawyers argue that festival organizers ignored warning signs earlier in the day, such as when “concertgoers breached a security gate around the park, stampeded into the premises, and trampled over one another,” and that organizers “made the conscious decision to let the show go on, despite the extreme risk of harm to concertgoers that was escalating by the moment.”
The suit also singles out Scott himself for his alleged “express encouragement of violence” that “has previously resulted in serious violence at numerous past concerts.”
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Souza’s lawsuit “accuses the organizers of negligence and gross negligence and is seeking at least $1 million in damages,” notes Billboard, adding that “Souza’s attorneys are also asking for a temporary restraining order preventing any destruction of evidence, which could be heard in court as soon Monday.”
Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle is reporting that many more lawsuits from concert attendees should be expected in the days to come, with damages estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
