In a startling interview, journalist Brian Entin of NewsNation Now spoke with a security guard who was hired via text for the Astroworld Music Festival. The security guard, Jackson Bush, works a day job as a car detailer. He reports that he not only has never worked as a concert security guard, but had never attended a concert in his life.
Bush reports that when he showed up for duty, he was given a vest and put to work—no verification of his identity, his qualifications, or his experience. He asserts that he could have been a useful security guard, but the concert organizers didn’t sufficiently prep staff or security.
“I believe if we were all prepared the right way, that stuff wouldn’t have happened the way it did,” Bush said. “The amount of injuries could have been prevented.” His uncle, who was also hired as a security guard, broke his hand during the stampede. Neither of them felt like they knew what they could do to help the situation, and both considered leaving.
Failure of Preparation Led to Loss of Life
Crowd control is a specialized skill. It requires experience, training, and authority to do it well, especially in a crowd as large as the Astroworld attendees. With 50,000 people all attending an event for an artist known for inciting mass chaos and causing injury to audience members, the organizers had every reason to hire and train as many qualified security personnel as possible.
Instead, Live Nation and other concert organizers engaged in unsafe hiring practices, which directly led to a mass casualty event. Key personnel that might have controlled the crowd or prevented crowd surge were nowhere to be found when people needed them. Instead, people with no experience were thrown into one of the most difficult and demanding situations a security guard could face.
The disaster at Astroworld isn’t on Jackson Bush or other security guards. It’s on the concert promoters and organizers who saw what was coming and did nothing to stop it.
Arnold & Itkin is representing multiple Astroworld survivors and victims to hold Live Nation, Travis Scott, and other at-fault parties accountable for the harm they caused. Practices like these need to end, and someone needs to answer for the lives that were destroyed due to negligence and lack of care. Our Astroworld concert injury attorneys look forward to making those responsible answer for their actions on behalf of our clients.
More information about the Astroworld mass casualty event: