A concertgoer at Friday’s ill-fated Astroworld show in Houston is suing Travis Scott and the event’s organizers over the “predictable and preventable tragedy,” a report says.
Manuel Souza, who said he was injured in the mayhem at the show at NRG Park — where eight people died in a crush of bodies — accuses the rap star and promoters Live Nation and ScoreMore of putting profits before safety at the 50,000-strong event, according to the suit.
“Defendants failed to properly plan and conduct the concert in a safe manner,” Souza’s lawyers said in papers filed Saturday in Harris County District Court, Billboard reported.
“Instead, they consciously ignored the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers and, in some cases, actively encouraged and fomented dangerous behaviors,” alleged the lawsuit, the first of an expected many legal filings related to the case.
Souza’s suit ripped Scott and the promoters for continuing the show even after ambulances rushed to the scene to treat dozens of injured people.
“Eventually, due to defendants’ active decision to let the show go on, the scene devolved into a complete melee, resulting in the needless, untimely death of at least eight people and injuries to scores of others,” the document said.
The suit claims the show was unruly from the start, when anxious fans “breached a security gate around the park, stampeded into the premises and trampled over one another” just to get into the sold-out concert.
During Scott’s performance, fans pushed the crowd forward, crushing dozens and leaving the eight victims dead — one as young as 14.
The suit accuses Scott and the organizers of negligence and gross negligence and seeks at least $1 million in damages, Billboard said.
In a phone interview with the outlet Sunday, Souza’s lawyer, Kevin Haynes, called the fatal stampede at the show “unnecessary.
“This kind of thing is not supposed to happen,” Haynes said. “There were things that were supposed to be done that were not done.”
Neither Scott nor the promoters immediately returned Billboard’s requests for comment.