Astroworld Soapbox 2:  If I Had Planned It.

I’m back on my soapbox for Astroworld Part 2.

The last post focused on what went horrifically wrong with Astroworld.  This post is going to focus on putting my money where my mouth is; I’m going to outline what I would have done in a few areas: contracts; layout; and, risk management plan.  There are a lot of other pieces that go into organizing any event, but I chose these areas as I believe they are the core of the problems that occurred.  Of course, there is a bias in what follows as I have the benefit of knowing what happened and having examined what was done.  The counter argument to that is that I am a responsible event professional who has done the work to learn how to keep events as safe as possible.

Let’s start with Contracts.  When most people hear the word “contract” it makes them cringe.  I happen to love them, partially due to one of my mentors, Dr. Tyra Warner, who let me help her with research on contracts. 

The first thing to do when signing contracts is to make sure the parties with whom I sign contracts were capable of assuming the responsibilities and liabilities.  This means researching the companies and asking for credentials, training processes, licenses, certifications, permits, and so on.  Specifically with a security company I want to see their license, how long they have been in business, the types of events they have done in the past, their training practices, and their hiring practices.

The second thing about contracts is reading them carefully.  When a contract is signed it becomes binding, each party is expected to do what is outlined in the contract.  Saying that you didn’t see that in the contract is not an out.

The third, and final part about contracts is negotiation.  Typically, a contract is provided by the supplier (security firm, venue, F&B vendors) and favours them, which is understandable.  Everything in a contract is negotiable and you should be making sure that contracts protect both parties and is equally fair.

Next up, Layout.  The event needed a scale model, which includes all aspects of the events from the staging area (where attendees gather before coming in), to the vendors, the stage, the quadrants, medical tent and vehicles.  The layout should be in several formats, a master copy and close-ups of different areas, and is created in collaboration with everyone that will be on-site. 

For Astroworld, the command center for Houston PD was set up in a parking lot a mile away from the stages, I would have insisted it be inside the gates.  That reduces the response time as well as removes the visibility of police which can be a deterrent for problems.

The entrances were a nightmare.  They were clearly too small to accommodate the expected 50,000 people.  They also needed to consider the Covid protocols that were to be used.  The size of the entrances created a bottleneck, which lead to people pushing forward and breaking down the gates. 

Along with making the entrances larger I would also have used a queuing system that lined people up with a switchback like you see in the airports.  Having a single, long line tends to make people anxious and more prone to pushing; using stanchions and switchbacks give the illusion of movement. 

The stage, wow it was a bad idea to have 2 stages but only use 1 for the majority of the festival.  I would have advised using a single stage; it would have avoided people moving in the dark through the trees and coming into the quadrants from one side.  If 2 stages were required, I would have used corrals to direct people to the middle aisle so the areas would fill more equally; more on this in the section on the risk management plan. 

The layout of 100-foot quadrants with partial corrals, was not thought out.  The metal corrals block access from all directions.  In the documentary you could clearly see that people were crushed against the corrals. 

Another thing that surprised me was no designated mosh pit.  Travis Scott concerts are known to result in mosh pits, not having a designated area(s) meant they happened in the quadrants.  There was already not enough room, now we are adding people bouncing off each other to the mix.

Finally, lighting, there needed to be a lot more.  There should have been lighting so that people could see where they were going and how crowded it was getting.  The lighting would have been dimmed during the performance so as to not interfere with the pyrotechnics, but could be turned up when problems started happening or to let people know the event was over and it was time to leave.

Finally, Risk Management Plan. Astroworld had an emergency plan, but not a risk management plan.  An emergency plan is reactive to specific problems.  A well-done risk management plan is proactive, identifying potential risks before the event; allowing for modifications to be made that will reduce the potential for the risks to manifest. 

To outline a full risk management plan for Astroworld is beyond what I can do here, so I will focus on the crowd movement, which was absent from the Astroworld emergency plan.  First step is to identify how you want the crowd to move through the space.  This is an ideal, but you need to keep in mind that people rarely do what you want.  That means considering all the ways they could move through the space.  A good friend of mine, Ed Slapik, calls this thinking about the lowest common denominator of stupid.  I refer to it as remembering groups of people are stupid and will follow without much thought.  In order to move people from the second stage to the main stage, in the dark, through trees, screams risk to me.  Add to that the 100-foot quadrants, with corrals, and general admission (no assigned seating).  If you talk to any responsible event professional the phrase “general admission” will make them faint of heart, it is known to cause pushing, which leads to crushing.  General admission makes people crazy, they rush to get the best spot because they can.

If the quadrants and corrals were something that security and medical staff insisted on using, I would have enclosed the quadrant on all sides, widened the aisles, directed the people down the middle aisle and had staff at each entrance counting the number of people entering.  The corral would be closed when the capacity was reached.  There would be staff and signage directing people to different areas. 

The access aisles needed to be much larger, allowing for vehicles to enter the area if needed.  When problems started occurring people were pulled into the access aisles, but not moved out of them.  Some people needed to be treated immediately, but after treatment there was no way to move them to the medical tents.  I recognize that even with wider access aisles vehicles may not have been able to safely enter the area, but at least there would be space to move people out of danger more easily.

Individuals with medical training were woefully lacking at Astroworld.  A general rule is 32 individuals with medical training per 10,000 people, meaning there should have been approximately 1500 medical staff on-site.  This rule comes from the Medical Utilization Rate (MUR) or Patient Presentation Rate (PPR), and needs to also consider the specifics of the event to determine the appropriate number.  I found one article that mentioned the medical company hired by Astroworld had 70 people on-site.

It is clear there was no communication plan for the event, even though communication is a crucial part the overall event, but especially for a risk management plan.  There needed to be identified staff with radios and headsets on a dedicated channel giving updates on a regular basis to the organizer, medical staff and Houston PD.  This staff’s only responsibility is to monitor the crowd looking for indications of problems so they could be dealt with quickly.

I’m going to end with this thought:  there is no such thing as a risk-free event.  No matter how good someone is, things will go wrong even with a well thought out risk management plan.  While I cannot say definitively say that deaths and injuries were preventable at Astroworld;  I can say that implementing basic risk management protocols would have helped and it’s shameful that it didn’t happen.

I’m going to get off my soapbox, for now.  You can bet I will bring it out again.