The death toll from last weekend’s concert featuring rapper Travis Scott at the Astroworld Festival in Houston has climbed to nine. A 22 year old woman who had been hospitalized died on Thursday.
Bryan Wang is an associate professor in UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications and says it remains to be seen what the fallout will be for Scott. “I really want to see how the public thinks who is responsible for this. I think that’s really going to affect how his reputation is going to be damaged,” Wang says.
Wang tells KLIN News he feels it’s a crisis that could have been prevented if enough proactive measures would have been taken. “To me a crowd surge at a concert is one of those incidents that concert organizers and musicians can anticipate, because incidents like this have happened at other musical festivals before.”
He believes the public will attribute part of the cause of the tragedy to Scott for how he handled the crisis on the spot. He says given how he has handled the crisis it’s uncertain if Scott will lose any future concert bookings and sponsorship deals.
(Photo: University of Nebraska)