382: Astroworld Could Have Been Prevented... Here's How (feat. Chris Goyzueta)

Chris Goyzueta  
AstroWorld could have been prevented. The nine people that died, didn't have to die. We didn't need to have the 300 Plus that got injured, the 11 people who suffered from cardiac arrest that all could have been avoided. And I'm gonna share some solutions for events in general. And you know, s, people in the liberty movement are starting to do events, and they're starting to map big events where 1000s of people are showing up, talking about security is important and needs to be taken very seriously. Because if you look at the events of AstroWorld, again, nine people died, potentially more, and 11 had cardiac arrest, and over 300 people were injured, and it all could have been avoided. So thanks to Brian Nichols, and welcome everybody to The Brian Nichols Show. Not talking marketing today. Today, I want to talk about something a little more serious that I'm something I'm really passionate about is safety at events. And I did a deep dive video on this. So we'll be along deep dive this is just a quick overview on what happened in AstroWorld. And why it could have been avoided, and some some solutions. So things like that don't happen again. Right. So quick overview on what happened AstroWorld. So first of all, rapper Travis Scott did a festival in a venue that did not have the capabilities or wasn't equipped to handle 50,000 plus people. Also, they didn't have enough security, they didn't have enough police and their protocols were absolutely horrible. But even with all of that, that concert never should have happened. So usually when you go to an event, right, you buy a ticket, you go through a security, especially a concert right to buy ticket, you go through security and security you might get one day they might have pat downs, they might have like metal detectors that you walk through maybe a combo of all of those. And everyone kind of comes in and has been been checked and vetted, make sure they get in safely, right. And in the concert industry and music industry, we have a term called Show stop event or stop show event. Right? So event that happens where the show just needs to be stopped, because it's unsafe for the show to continue. So I'm not even so busy real quick before I get through the event that I believe should have been those the snapshot event. Nope. Not only was it way overcrowded at the site, they had a serious issue with crowd surge. So a crowd surge is when you have 1000s of people pushing in one direction towards the stage usually because they're trying to get closer and closer to the stage. And then people start feeling pressure from getting pushed and start getting tight. And they want to get out right so then you have hundreds or even 1000s More pushing back in the other direction. The tree just try to get the hell out of there. And what happens a lot of people that are in the middle of this or even at the barricades because they can't escape or be pushed so hard against the barricades. They they can't breathe and and slough could pass out i because there is literally almost no oxygen in the lungs, but they're there. So we're the ones that died. It usually died from asphyxiation, which is literally you can't breathe like there's just no air able to come in and able air unable to go out. You're just completely out of oxygen and you die from basically suffocating to death, which is horrible way to go. And, you know, if you're lucky, right, you don't die. A lot of people they're passed out or unconscious. They the medical staff was completely overwhelmed, right? There's actually a girl that passed out and was in a medical tent woke up in the medical tent, and she was a nurse. So she immediately starts helping the medical team and starts giving CPR and first aid to people to try to help save lives. And she was just passed out. She's trying to save these lives. Right. And this all started happening.

Probably between the artists. That's before Travis Scott and Travis Scott. Right. So he had a 30 minute countdown before his show start and already happened during that countdown. So people were passing out. There's a rape and deaths before show even started. There is a I have a couple of scenes queued up. I don't know how deep I want to go. But there's this this is horrible scenes. Actually, you know what, I've done a deep dive on this. But I do want to show a couple of things right. So real quick. So this first clip I'm gonna show and if you listen to the audio version of this, I'll explain the clips. And then maybe we'll I'll talk about the clip afterwards. But I have a couple of clips I want to show real quick and there's a part where the audience is in between songs is just chanting stop the show stop the show, because how horrible the crowd surge is and people again are passing out they're dying, and that they're really just suffering and this event is has really turned south so here's a clip of people chanting stop the show

Unknown Speaker  
Noise real quick

Chris Goyzueta  
right, so we'll use that clip, miter saw someone dying that just died five songs ago, Travis Scott still going on and having worked on so what's my qualifications to talk about this? I have booked in produced over 2500 shows probably getting close to about 3000. And it's anywhere from clubs to festivals to arenas to amphitheaters. And when things like that start happening when people are passing out at shows are dying at shows. Maybe you're thinking, Oh, maybe they didn't know about it, they absolutely knew about it. The second someone passes out the second that medics have to attend to someone, here are the people that know and the medics are usually on radios. Now there was talks about the medics not having enough radios, which is a security disaster to begin with. But every medic should have a radio so they can communicate with the festival producers, right. So once that medic, started trying to help the first person that passed out, they should have communicated, and you probably did with the festival producers, and the touring production company, right. So the press coming up, put on the festival. And the show continued right. So five songs ago and again, I said as the restart happening during during the 30 minute countdown, then the next clip, and in that clip, if you miss the audio version of it, it's Travis Scott standing on a giant platform just looking down at the audience not doing anything, right. And he's now Can he hear them chanting stop the show? Probably, because it was quite a few people chanting it right. But artists do where if you ever see these headphones, they have in their ears, what looks like headphones, those are called in ear monitors, right? So that's where they can hear themselves sing, or rap or whatever it is, or they hear the band performing ready to hear the music, they have tracks playing in their ears. And a reason that happens is because it is really hard to hear on stage. So so they can hear themselves and perform better. They have these in your monitors. And so potentially, because in your monitors, he didn't hear it, but I can I highly doubt it at this little thing. He heard something, right. But anyway, so the next clip on the show is, as you see the crowd surge right at the barricade, right. And usually when people are being pressed against the barricade or people are starting to pass outs when you see like, he's all squared away with CDs, old school, Michael Jackson videos of girls being pulled out of the audience and being passed out, right? Because that a lot of times is gonna happen because they're just super dehydrated, right? Because a lot of times when young people go to shows they want to rush to the gates, and he parked themselves there and they're there any tire showed and I go into a drink, they're not going to gain eat. And it's hot and sweaty when you're that close to the stage. And any probably pass out from dehydration, right. So Pete It's common that people get pulled out, but it's usually pretty easy. Like it's just like a quick second and the person gets pulled out from find a barricade. So in this clip, you can see the security struggling to pull someone out. I mean, they're just squished so tight against that barricade that the security is having a really hard time though to push them out. Let's play this clip right

here. Right in the people that are able to like walking just loosely right in front of the Barricade, they've already gone over the barricade for whatever reason, either day, they were already dehydrated or asked to scream for help. Or they were passed out and they were they came back to consciousness once they got pulled out of the hot, sweaty mess and all the pressure from the crowd surge. But as you saw the ones that were standing on the barricades for barricades usually have a called Crash barricades. But there's a platform on one side that the audience stands on to the super weight of the audience holds the barricade down so they can't be pushed over. And and Howard, the crowd search account was so strong that those barricades broke and they should not break that's, that's a lot of steel that that just they just broke through. And then on the other side of those barricades, there's a small platform that people can stand on top of and they can pull people out or you can watch the crowd right, see what's happening within the crowd. And you could see the people on the other side of the barricade on this side of the stage. They were having a really hard time pushing, pulling the people out or a Yankee them several times, just get them inch by edge on the crowd and that's how tight that crowd surge was right there from the stage. And then the last clip I'll show you I show you all that what I believe was a stop show event is really disturbing. It's Travis God standing on that platform. Looking down into the crowd. He can see clearly See that someone is passed out being carried out, right? But looks pretty lifeless, it looks the person looks like the dead. And he's up there saying the words dead, dead dead, it's really disturbing clip

that's disturbing. Okay, so now why this show should have never happened and then we'll talk about some solutions. And so again, so security is the number one thing, right? If you're producing events, if you're on the promoter side or the producer side, so you're, if an artist plays a show, the artist is the producer of their own show, right? So it's not always I say, these these big elaborate productions, but on festival is a bigger producer, a production team, that's all involved working with the artists put these on right. And the second your event or your concert becomes unsafe, it should be a stop show event show just needs to be stopped. And as I mentioned, when we talked about the security check in, right people coming in through the gates in security. And there's several areas, several clips where people have broken down the security gates and are just running into the venue not being checked. In some of those clips there. Even people with backpacks on getting into into the festival side, which is horrible. I mean, what's in those backpacks, right, there's weapons explosives, like what is in those backpacks, and they could have potentially killed hundreds and 1000s of people if they would have brought weapons in. And there's some real dangerous people that got in there. But it's already sold out, it's been sold out for months. And with these hundreds or even 1000s of problems, 1000s or several areas, that was basically having all the entrances. And there's another area where people started jumping over the fence. And the weight of the mass of people jumping over a fence broke down the fence. And again, all different areas where people just running in by the hundreds, maybe 1000s of people got in that should have been in there in a site that's already oversold, and can handle the people that are there, probably contributing to more of that crowd search, there's been stories of people getting stabbed by needles and inject it with something right. And some believe that may have been fentanyl, which could have contributed to some people having cardiac arrest. But again, that that kind of stuff comes in when there's nobody being checked at security, right. So here's one of the clips of people just storming in through the security gate.

That that entire clip is about two minutes long. And as you saw that entire time, there's dozens of people running in production a per second. And that was happening for at least two minutes. That's how long the clip is. And if not longer, you know, so going to hundreds of people just streaming and just that one location, this was happening at several locations and people jumping over a fence. And the horrible thing is so cybersecurity at concerts in general mode sort of security company, I'm calling them out security company that was used at this event was a security company called CSC contemporary services corporation that believes what it stands for. And, and I've worked for CSC and I know what they pay, right. And I've been on the other side, on the promoter side, we're working for a venue that hire them. And I know what they what they charge to the venues and promoters. So they if you're a promoter or venue, you're probably paying them 18 to $24 an hour depending on the city, depending on how established you are and your relationship with them and CSC right. And at an 18 to $24 an hour and that's just for regular guards and the other supervisors. Right. The security guard gets paid minimum wage, right. So at the time when I was working for them, the minimums was pretty low was like six or $7 an hour. So that's what I got paid. And there's there's no it's probably still minimum wage. I've heard people talk about it's less than $10 an hour for sure. And I know in the liberty movement, right, we're all about free market free and open markets and everything but when it comes to yours, and that's the thing, right? So if there was transparency, and the promoters knew what was actually being done right, they're actually only getting paid minimum wage, and are not really qualified as like there's no training. They're not former like military or former police like zero training I used to have my college kids are people that are older, right? So let's think about going to a sports game. And the people that are the ushers that are taking use the seats, those are the exact same people, they were for the same company. No, they're, they're the exact same people are going to work festivals like that. They're not trained for things like that. And there is no training. Right? So you're just kind of just learn as you go. And that's, that's where the free market needs to take over. Right? So that's my solution is all my solutions are free market oriented. And the free market just needs to step in, and the industry needs to correct itself, but from all these mistakes, but when it comes to legal repercussions, I mean, there's people that are there they are they should they should go to jail for what happened and they're responsible for for the deaths of these people. Right. So continuing on with security, so you're paying minimum wage, there's no training, there's no qualifications. They were understaffed, there's not enough security. And one of the things that's pretty disturbing is their security protocol. And I looked up the, I guess the definition, I think was like a government definition of what a multiple casualty event is, or all sorts MC as they call it, right multiple casualty incident. So let me if you're looking at the the video version, I'm going to share the document from from the festival that which is like their entire security protocol. And in this document, right, you see what is considered a multiple casualty incidents. So the definition slash overview and this is exactly the same definition that any government entity would use. So, though a number of events may be called catastrophic or disasters, there is no one agreed upon definition of an MCI multiple casualty incidents. For the purpose of this plan, we shall consider an MCI to be timed to be addressed in this grammar errors in this to address me nuts. But so to consider an MCI to be a time that onsite EMS services become overwhelmed, and outset resources need to be submitted, right. So it's not a multiple, multiple casualty incident, until their medics are overwhelmed. But what if they are understaffed with medics? What if they scheduled only six medics for a 50,000 person event, of course, they're going to be overwhelmed, right. And

the other thing too, is that I have an issue with people or going to a concert or trusting the organizers of that concert to keep them safe, right? You You don't go to a concert and feel like you should be worried about your safety, you're there to have a good time you're there to let loose to have a couple of drinks to maybe smoke some weed, right? Whatever it is you do to have fun. That's your total, right. And you should feel safe when you go there. When one person dies, not eight or nine, but the ninth person died a couple days later, but eight people died at the event. 11 people had cardiac arrest at the event, there's over 300 people injured at the event. That event should have stopped not to say after the first person that might be a little extreme. Boom, the second person died. Done, the event is over. Right. So even if the thing with security gates didn't happen, the second the second person died, it should have been over because your crowd is not safe, Kratos, dying and suffering and has eventually been stopped. But again, once that security gate security gates were broken down in broad daylight, that's already which should have stopped. So we should have never even gotten to that point, right? And in the in the video where I'll go more in depth when in depth on my YouTube channel or even my podcast if you want to hear me talk about some other scenarios, right. So if you cancel an event with 50,000 people there, of course, that's not the safest thing to do. So you have to have a strategy on how you're going to cancel an event and turn away 50,000 people, which which I'll talk about that more in depth video. I'm trying to get the shortest us, Sir Brian. But some solutions, some using for a couple quick solutions. So first of all, you got to have trained and qualified people. Right. So again, no, no government licenses, I think there should be organizations that are certifying bodies that certify events that certify promoters that certify venues that certify artists, right so it could be this artist is certified by the safety company, this venue is certified by the safety company. And those promoters, those artists they pay for someone may split the cost and there's lots of cost that gets split by the artists and promoters or the arts in the venues, depending on the people involved in promoting the show. But it should be a show cost that someone goes to the site and does a security inspection and make sure that the event is safe that the perimeter is safe, that there's enough staffing that you bring a bomb sniffing dog and you you go check for for explosives, you have proper metal detectors, detecting knives, guns, right whatever else you're detecting for. And certifies those events saying it's safe, it's safe to go to this event. And they have the best promoters in the world. I mean you have your artists you're coming with massive influencers right so if they put out PSAs saying this event is certified by this organization, you can have competing organizations Right. And those organizations can talk about why they're better. I mean, in the personal training industry, there's all different types of personal training certifications. And every gym accepts different certifications, right? So maybe every artist accepts certain certifications, or maybe every venue and also, maybe certain artists only play venues that are certified by this body or that body or these two or three certifications. Maybe there is venues that will only allow artists where their their team is certified by one of the certifications that that venue approves, right. So venues and the artist should should have the right to choose which certifying bodies they approve, but there needs to be some certifications, there's needs to be accountability and getting conversations like this can create awareness around how horrible our industry is when it comes to security. And, you know, unions would be great, too. Right? So as long as again, I think a lot of people in Liberty world are pro unions cause us to join voluntarily, as long as these various unions are not lobbying the government and are trying to create laws to by by lawmakers that have absolutely no idea about our industry, right? If there's unions soon as there's unions when production company, right, companies, right, so yatse is like a really big union that offers labor for for shows. And they're great. There's this, no, it's about pay to ask because you have to work around the union rules, but it's okay. Right there. Their workers are pay really well. They high quality workers, they are treated fairly, they get plenty of breaks, right? Especially when working 16 1718 hour days, they're workers taken care of. And security, they are not taken care of. I mean, a lot of these events, people forget the bring the water, right, and you're talking about someone standing in the same position for at the same post for eight 910 minute festival like this, maybe 15 hours, maybe not even get a relief for a bathroom break,

right and not having enough water, right? Nobody's taken care of the security or especially of 500 guards. It's there's nobody taking care of them. And it's absolute BS that needs to change, right? So conversations like this need to be out there, we need to be more transparent about all the issues within our industry. And we need to take care of security. And I think unions would help I think certifications would help. Make sure I didn't miss anything, I'm gonna add a couple couple of notes. These are not at all for this one. But there's a lot we can do. Right? There's a lot we can do to to offer solutions to have better security. And then the last thing I want to say is I've been to a few Liberty events recently, and it has been fun, I really, really good time at those. And you're talking about I don't wanna call any events out. I wasn't the beginning. But I'm gonna do that. But you're talking about over 1000 over 2000 people at some of these events and no security at all. Absolutely no security. So luckily, no to Liberty events, probably half the audience strapped anyway. So if someone some idiot comes and tries to pull something, that they're probably going to get taken out pretty quickly. But it also only takes a couple seconds, right for your your talent onstage. I mean, God forbid, one of the one of the people that we love and listen to one of the people that we want to run and represent our party is standing on a stage at a venue that's not secured, and someone takes their life, right. We got to be more responsible to as libertarians, and maybe we lead by example and show the music industry, the entertainment industry how to do it. Right, right, because we have good ideas. We have good solutions that don't require government that don't require force and coercion. Right? That's just us working together, making sure we have amazing events. Everyone's having a good time. And everyone is involved working, participating. And just coming as a as a guest voluntarily and feeling safe and having an amazing time. So anyways, thank you all for listening. Thanks for whoever stuck around for this whole thing. Thanks for allowing me to speak about about this topic on Brian on The Brian Nichols Show, thanks to Brian Nichols, for allowing me to talk about this. As they'll know, when I'm on Brian Nichols, I'm not the best self promoter, but you know, go to Brian Nichols show.com. To To learn more about The Brian Nichols Show and all the great episodes, Brian has had a great amazing guests he's had if you want to learn more about me everything about me is I'm making it with Chris g.com. I haven't posted much on the website lately. But all the links to the socials that I do use most of the time. So even so YouTube and Instagram pretty much you can find those links there, Link to my Patreon, there if you're someone that's in the music industry, and that's trying to learn how this industry works, so you can find all of that there. But again, thank y'all for listening, subscribe to the show. leave a review, leave us a five star review, right leave random reviews on Apple podcasts that really helps bring the scale of the podcast helps brand get more amazing guests and more sponsors supporting the show. So thank you all so much. And as I always say, go see shows meet people make stuff and live the life you love. Peace, my friends.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai