Catastrophe at Travis Scott concert must serve as wake-up call

There is still much to learn about the horrific events Friday night at the Astroworld festival in Houston, which resulted in at least eight deaths (including two college students from Naperville and teens as young as 14 years old), along with hundreds of injuries. But let's all be clear about one thing: The continuation of the Travis Scott concert for a prolonged period after it became clear some of the young people in the audience were being crushed was unforgivable.

Precisely who was to blame for that decision, and when and to what degree the artist on stage could have known what was transpiring and its scale, will be something for investigators and courts to find out. But it's already clear there was no adequate emergency communication between those aware of what was transpiring on the crowded floor and the stage.

It certainly appears that the crush of people compounded difficulties faced by emergency services needing access to the injured and that some fans tried desperately to get attention from the production staff for the unfolding human catastrophe but went unheard for too long.

Scott's ebulliently interactive concerts are famous for whipping attendees into a kind of free-flowing euphoria. His young fans adore such experiences, but we should have all been far more cognizant of the perils of thousands of unseated fans at high-energy public events, where perceived rewards accrue from pushing toward the front or enjoying the feeling of losing oneself in a ecstatic wave of like-minded people, moving together like a serpent.

History offers lessons.

The most obvious one is the infamous concert by The Who at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum in 1979, where a stampede among general-admission attendees rushing for the best spot resulted in a nightmare that killed 11 people. That event, which came after prior crowd-control issues at a Led Zeppelin show some two years earlier, led to a realization that concerts that had nonreserved seating had baked-in dangers. Thereafter, Cincinnati banned so-called "festival" seating, only to see that decision overturned some 24 years later.

These days, general-admission seating at concerts is common practice again. At Scott concerts, as at many others, die-hard fans, especially teenagers, aren't interested in seats. They want to be on their feet in the crowd, swaying and moving with Scott as the conductor. Scott's concerts are, to some degree, like amusement-park rides, and that's the thrill for sale.

The Hillsborough disaster, as it is widely known, resulted in the death of 97 people and 166 injuries. In essence, standing fans at a game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest were herded into overcrowded pens from which there was no apparent escape, since fencing prevented an escape onto the soccer pitch itself. Hundreds of people were pressed against the fences, and each other, by the weight of the crowd. Here, as in Houston, it took far too long for people to realize the scale of the problem.

That incident, Britain's worst sports-related disaster, seared the British psyche for a generation or more, and the inquiries and postmortems went on for decades. There were criminal investigations. Coroner's inquests. A documentary. Books and stage plays. A major inquiry, the Taylor Report, caused political responses and major repercussions.

Public officials lost their jobs. Tabloid media was forced to admit mistaken reporting. And, at the time, shameful attempts were made by a variety of scared officials to blame the fans themselves.

But the result was all-seater professional soccer stadiums throughout the U.K., and the banning of so-called "terraces" at major stadiums throughout Europe.

The setup at Astroworld was not the same as Sheffield. But at most concerts with general admission down front, the crowd surges forward toward the stage only to encounter a physical barrier, perhaps the stage itself, perhaps a line of security guards there to protect the artist. This can be a disaster waiting to happen, and, on Friday night, such fears were realized.

Here's one thing that could be changed. In June 2018, this newspaper reported on a $75 million plan by Chicago to restore the Uptown Theatre, a massive and extraordinarily beautiful venue with some 4,400 seats. The plan since has stalled, but the theater still will most likely be restored at some point; there is no other choice, as the historic architectural loss would be unforgivable.

That restoration plan featured removable main-floor seats, designed so rockconcerts with general admission standing sections could be booked there. That would allow not 4,400 but as many as 5,800 tickets to be sold, making the venue not just the biggest theater in the city, but a place with a capacity close to that of arenas. In other words, far more money could be made.

We're not saying that every standing section at every concert, indoors and outdoors, inherently is unsafe. But those deaths Friday night in Houston should, at a minimum, wake us up to the seemingly forgotten dangers of any public event where each person does not have a guaranteed piece of real estate, purchased in advance.

Public officials have a duty to protect young people who want to have fun at a concert but also have the reasonable expectation of being able to return home afterwards. Fire is not the only clear and present danger.

That protection did not happen in Houston. Some of those who died clearly were strong, young people, a reminder of how it is possible to be crushed even while standing up, should a crowd be constricted in some way or if its waves crash against barriers, be they physical or human. And, yes, it is possible for performers and promoters to make that better or worse by their actions.