The Bleak Lessons of the Astroworld Nightmare
Concert catastrophes aren’t an inevitable side effect of mass gatherings, but the result of specific and often avoidable failures.
by Spencer Kornhaber
Nov 10, 2021
4 minutes
Updated at 9:35 a.m. ET on Thursday, November 11, 2021
Early in the summer, when so many people felt giddy about getting back together, I was jolted with dread for the gatherings to come. The cause was an HBO documentary about the Woodstock ’99 , which resulted in destructive infernos, reported sexual assaults, and three deaths. The film portrayed that catastrophe as both a product of its times—the dreams of the ’90s gone rotten—and an example of industry figures skimping on safety for a profit. After more than a year without many huge concerts, the history lesson felt like a warning of what might happen when they returned in earnest: that many people might act especially recklessly, and many
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