It was just after 9 p.m. when rapper Travis Scott took the stage at his Astroworld music festival in Houston last November. Tens of thousands of fans rushed toward the stage to be closer to the performer — and panic sparked when people struggled to stay on their feet. The crowd surged for another hour as the concert continued, and 10 people ultimately died from compression asphyxia in the crush. Another 25 were hospitalized and hundreds were injured.
One lawsuit filed against Scott and the venue by an injured attendee claimed the stampede could have been avoided with advanced planning and proper safety precautions. Hundreds of other lawsuits have also been filed against the rapper and venue by other injured parties. Problematically, many venues and event planners don’t include crowd management in their preparations, although people have died in recent years in chaotic crowds like the one at Astroworld. Experts warn the frequency of such disasters are increasing.
The discipline of crowd science seeks to avoid this. Crowd science relies on behavioral psychology and computer simulations to analyze how groups of people might react in a specific location, such as a subway station, and under certain conditions, such as hearing an alarm or smelling smoke. The computer programs are growing more sophisticated, and scientists can now bestow a multitude of personalities and varied reactions to the simulated people.
