Proceed with caution. On the 4th of July, Travis Scott performed at Coney Island and told fans to calm down during his set. The Astroworld artist stopped his concert multiple times to make sure that his fans were okay.
On July 4, 2022, Scott held a concert on Coney Island, New York, and a video captured by TMZ caught all the times that the “Franchise” rapper told his audience to calm down. “We need y’all to get down,” he said at a person who was climbing the metal scaffolding. “My brother, just make sure you’re OK.” At another point, he could be heard telling someone that they “gotta get down.” At other points, he was telling fans to “relax” and to “back up” from the barricade. “Everybody right here, take two steps back,” he said. “Security, do not push them. Don’t push it. Don’t push the barricade.”
The performance comes eight months after 10 people died at the Astroworld festival in Houston, Texas, on November 5, 2021. The concert, which has been called a “mass casualty incident,” included more than 50,000 attendees. Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña explained at a press conference on November 6, 2021, that most of the injuries came at 9 p.m. the night of the concert, when the crowd “began to compress toward the front of the stage” as Travis performed, which caused panic. As the crowd continued to surge, festival organizers reportedly agreed to cut the concert short, according to the Houston Chronicle. However, the show went on as originally planned, with Scott completing his setlist at 10:15 p.m. By the end of the night, eight people ended up dead, while over 300 were injured. Two people were later pronounced dead days after the festival.
The “Sicko Mode” rapper revealed his feelings about the incident in a December 9, 2021, interview with Charlamagne Tha God.“I didn’t know the exact details until [after my set], minutes before the press conference that I figured out exactly what happened,” Travis told Charlamagne Tha God. “And even at that moment, you’re like….what?” The rapper went on to insist that he would have stopped the show if he realized what was going on in the crowd. “Anytime you hear something like that, you want to stop the show,” he said “You want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. Anytime I could see anything like that, I did [stop]. I stopped it a couple of times to just make sure everybody was okay. I just really go off the fans’ energy as a collective — call and response. I just didn’t hear that [this time].”
Sources told Variety on November 8, 2021, that Scott planned to provide full refunds to all who purchased tickets to the 3rd annual Astroworld event. Reports at the time also revealed that the Houston rapper pledged to cover the funeral costs for the ten people that died at his event, as well as provide additional aid and access to mental health services to those affected by the tragedy.