Travis Scott

While the aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy is still unfolding, Travis Scott and festival organizers just received their biggest punch. According to TMZ, Travis and others were hit with a $750 million lawsuit from more than 125 attendees. The suit was filed by Houston attorney Tony Buzbee and it places blame on Travis and festival organizers for “negligence in failing to properly plan the concert, train security personnel, and host a safe event.”

The family of 21-year-old Alex Acosta, who is one of 10 people who died as a result of the festival, are among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Acosta was allegedly crushed by an “incited, unruly and out-of-control crowd with such force that he could no longer breathe.” Buzbee also shared a statement about the high-priced lawsuit, which also names Drake, Apple, Live Nation, and others. “No amount of money will ever make these Plaintiffs whole; no amount of money can restore human life,” he said. “But, the damages sought in this case attempts to fix, help, or make up for the harms and losses suffered by these Plaintiffs — nothing more and nothing less.”

The lawsuit also addresses Travis and Live Nation’s recent decision to offer refunds to those who attended the festival earlier this month, a move legal experts say could waive concertgoers’ right to sue. The lawsuit called it “… a transparent and grotesque effort of the Defendants to limit their liability, after the fact, to the families of those killed or injured.”

The lawsuits that Travis Scott and Astroworld’s festival organizers have received are already in the triple digits with more on the way. This comes after the death of nine attendees at the showcase earlier this month. Hundreds more were injured as well during the festival. Travis Scott and Astroworld organizers announced that they will provide full refunds for everyone who purchased tickets to attend the show, but legal experts warn that accepting these refunds could come with irreversible consequences. Neama Rahmani, co-founder of the personal-injury firm West Coast Trial Lawyers spoke to Insider about this.

“Courts generally uphold those types of waivers,” Rahmani said. “The classic case is arbitration agreements. Everyone kind of scrolls through. No one reads the fine print, and guess what, you’ve waived your right to a jury trial, waived your right to file a lawsuit, to demand arbitration.” Legal analyst Carmen Roe had similar thoughts to Rahmani’s own, which she shared with Houston’s local station KHOU 11.

“What they need to look for specifically, is the word ‘Waiver,’ ‘Consent’ ‘Agreement’ of any kind,” Roe said when she was asked what attendees need to look for before accepting refunds. “And most importantly, they need to be concerned if they’re asked to sign anything.” She added, “Refunds should not come with a signature. So, in this particular case, Live Nation has suggested they’re going to refund these people, and that this is all going to be on the up and up. That shouldn’t require their signature under any circumstances.”

Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival unexpectedly turned into a tragedy on Friday night as it left eight people dead and hundreds more injured. Unfortunately, the number of deaths as a result of the incident has increased to nine after a 22-year-old woman who spent the past six days in the ICU passed away as a result of her injuries. Bharti Shahani’s death was confirmed by her family during a press conference on Thursday after previous reports revealed that she was showing no brain activity.

Her mother, Karishma Shahani, broke into tears as she remembered her daughter during the conference. “What happened to my blessing now,” she said. “I want my baby back. I won’t be able to live without her. It’s impossible.” Bharti’s father, Sunny Shahani, added, “Please make sure she gets justice and I don’t want somebody else’s daughter to go like this. It was the wrong day and wrong time for her.” Bharti, who was a student at Texas A&M University, had been on a ventilator since Friday night after her brain was deprived of oxygen and she suffered multiple heart attacks as a result of being crushed in the crowd at Astroworld.

Travis Scott and his team recently issued a statement to the families of Astroworld victims. “Travis Scott and his team have been actively exploring routes of connection with each and every family affected by the tragedy through the appropriate liaisons,” a press release read. “He is distraught by the situation and desperately wishes to share his condolences and provide aid to them as soon as possible, but wants to remain respectful of each family’s wishes on how they’d best like to be connected.”

The message concluded by asking the victim’s families to email [email protected] if they would like to reach out directly to his team.

In the days since the Astroworld Festival tragedy, Travis Scott has shared two statements about it on his social media pages. Now, his lawyer is stepping forward to speak about it and he’s calling out the Houston police department. In a statement released on Wednesday, according to Billboard, Edwin F. McPherson said, “There has been multiple finger-pointing, much of which has been by city officials, who have sent inconsistent messages and have backtracked from original statements.” McPherson then criticized Houston Police Chief Troy Finner for comments he made in a recent interview with The New York Times.

During the interview, McPherson cites Finner’s claim that Astroworld was not shut down for fear that fans would riot. However, McPherson said, “a short time later, Chief Finner states the responsibility to stop the show falls on Travis.”

“It was reported that the Operations Plan designated that only the festival director and executive producers have authority to stop the show, neither of which is part of Travis’s crew,” McPherson said. “This also runs afoul of HPD’s own previous actions when it shut down the power and sound at this very festival when the performance ran over 5 minutes back in 2019.”

He concluded, “Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again.”