A wave of people at the Astroworld music festival in Houston crushed concertgoers on Friday, trampled and gasping, struggling to survive against a wall of people advancing onto the stage.
Police are investigating the possible causes of the surge, which occurred at the Astroworld festival in NRG Park and killed eight people, as well as many more injuries. The show continued for 40 minutes after the first reports of injured spectators reached first responders.
As authorities reconstruct the moments before and after the surge, here is a timeline of what happened, according to authorities, eyewitness accounts and Citizen Free Press reports.
Before the show: Earlier in the day, a video from Citizen Free Press-affiliated KPRC showed numerous people pushing their way through the VIP entrance to the event, shooting down metal detectors and others and ignoring security personnel.
The video showed some people helping others to get up. Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told Citizen Free Press that he also did not know what caused the avalanche.
“We do know that there were people who jumped the fence” and that at least one person was injured in the afternoon rush, Peña said.
Citizen Free Press asked Peña if the case led to special precautions at this year’s event. “It is obvious that if they did, they were not enough,” replied Peña.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner visited with rapper Travis Scott, the festival’s headliner who also acted as the event’s organizer, before his set to express “concern about the energy in the crowd,” according to a report from The New York Times citing a source familiar with the boss’s account.
Citizen Free Press has reached out to Houston police and representatives for Travis Scott for comment on The New York Times report.
Before 9 p.m. Central Time: Madeline Eskins, an ICU nurse who attended the show, told Citizen Free Press’s Christi Paul that a countdown timer started around 30 minutes before Scott was ready to appear on stage.
“And all of a sudden, people compressed each other and pushed back and forth. As the timer got closer to zero, everything got worse,” Eskins said.
Concert goer Jeffrey Schmidt said that breathing became more difficult as the countdown neared zero, when he and his friend decided to try to get out of the crowd.
“We didn’t know that all hell was about to break loose. People started to faint and fall to the ground,” Schmidt told Citizen Free Press.
Shortly after 9:00 p.m., Scott took the stage to begin his performance. According to a concert attendee, the crowd thronged as the show began.
“The crowd was getting tighter and tighter, and at the time it was hard to breathe. When Travis came out to play his first song, I witnessed people swoon next to me,” TK Tellez said.
Sarai Sierra, who came to the festival to celebrate her birthday, said she saw several people who couldn’t breathe after Scott appeared on stage.
“I really thought if I fell it would have been the end of me. I spent at least 15 minutes being pushed around the mosh pits or just because people were ‘mad,'” Sierra said.
9:30 p.m.: Officials receive for the first time reports of people being injured in the crowd, according to Peña, and said they “requested additional resources from the scene.”
Finner told a news conference Saturday that “our people stepped forward and immediately turned to the producers and said, ‘Hey, people are falling.’
9:38 p.m.: a “mass casualty incident” was officially declared, Peña said.
“From the moment the mass casualty incident was declared until the first unit arrived at the scene, two minutes passed when we began to make contact with the patients,” he said.
Witnesses describe calling for help but could not be heard over the music.
“Travis Scott had a little time between songs and we froze our vocal chords so that someone would hear us, but no one would,” said Téllez. “This year’s festival will stick with me forever. I’ve never seen someone die in front of my eyes. It was horrible.”
Scott maintains that he had no idea of the severity of what was happening in the crowd as he continued his show, telling fans in an Instagram video Saturday night that he is “devastated” by what happened.
“Every time I could make out, you know, whatever was going on, you know, I just stopped my show and, you know, helped them get the help they needed,” Scott says in the video.
Images from the Astroworld livestream also showed Scott stopping his performance and watching in apparent confusion as an ambulance approached the crowd before the concert ended.
Concert goers Nick Johnson and Angel Rodriguez told Citizen Free Press that Scott stopped the show at least three times to ask for help for the attendees.
When asked why the show didn’t stop earlier, Finner cited the possibility of riots “when you have a group that’s young” in a crowd of roughly 50,000 people.
Finner said there was a “discussion between promoters, the fire department, the police department and NRG officials” about stopping the event.
Around 10:10 pm– The performance was stopped and the event came to an end, according to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. A concert attendee told Citizen Free Press’s Rosa Flores that she looked at her watch when the concert ended, and indicated “10:13 or 10:14 pm.”