Last month rapper Travis Scott’s highly anticipated Astroworld festival led to 10 deaths and left hundreds injured. On November 10, 110 people filed lawsuits. That number has increased to nearly 300. On December 7th, Travis publically requested to be removed as a defendant from many of the lawsuits. Travis and his team have stated they will continue to file for similar dismissals in the future. Amongst these dismissals is a case involving the death of 22-year-old Bharti Shahani. Although Travis was named in many of these lawsuits his team claims he “is not legally liable”.

Travis and his company Cactus Jack arent the only ones denying their legal liability. On Monday, concert promoters Live Nation and Score More denied all allegations and culpability for the event.

Law firm Brent Coon& Associates currently represent the most Astrowolrd concert-goers at a total of 1,547 individuals. They have filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Travis and Astroworld organizers. Brent Coon& Associates have requested the consolidation of all cases with a hearing set for December 13th.

This Astroworld situation reminded me of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  This section is intended to protect social media platforms by removing their liability from the content their users’ post. If social media platforms won’t be held accountable for their user’s posts then who will? The same can be said for artists at their concerts. Hundreds are people were psychologically and physically affected by this event and yet no one wants to claim responsibility. Since I don’t know all of the legality issues I can’t say it was solely Travis and Live Nation’s fault. After doing my research I believe both parties are partially responsible. I’m going to continue following the story to see its resolution.

Sources:

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Travis-Scott-requests-to-dismiss-Astroworld-16682134.php

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/business/astroworld-live-nation-safety-violations/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/business/astroworld-live-nation-safety-violations/index.html