What happened at the Travis Scott Astroworld festival?

A TRAGIC mass casualty incident happened at the Travis Scott Astroworld Festival. Here’s what we know about it. Travis Scott performs onstage during the third annual Astroworld Festival at NRG Park on November 5 What happened at the Travis Scott Astroworld Festival? At least eight people are dead and hundreds are said to be injured following a crush at the opening night of rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival. The crowd is said to have surged towards the stage while Scott was performing at the third annual Astroworld music festival at NRG Park in Houston on Friday. A crowd of 50,000 showed up for the two-day event, which sold out within an hour of tickets going live in May this year. Officials in Texas said the crowd began to “compress towards the front of the stage” at around 9.15pm, sparking panic. Most read in The Sun PADDLE ARREST Woman arrested on 'gross negligence manslaughter' as 4th paddleboarder dies BELTING NIGHT Tyson Fury took two women on wild 8hr bender after they asked him for selfie GET THEM IN THERE! I'm A Celeb FULL line-up - including soap icons, Prem legend & TV star LOOKING GOOD Loose Women's Nadia Sawalha reveals new look & fans say it takes YEARS off her 'love you to the bones' Joey Turner shocks in skeleton top after denying eating disorder HAD TO BE DUNN Sarah Jayne Dunn makes £121k in 48 hours as OnlyFans subscribers DOUBLE They transported 17 people to hospitals with 11 of them in cardiac arrest. It is feared hundreds more are injured, including children as young as 10. Addressing a press briefing in the early hours this morning, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said: “We had at least eight confirmed fatalities today. We had scores of individuals injured at this event.” He added that a “mass casualty incident” was triggered at 9.38pm and investigations are ongoing. Chief Pena told reporters: “At approximately 9.15pm the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries. “People began to fallout, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.” Several people were treated at the scene at NRG Park, where a field hospital was set up. When did the festival take place? Astroworld Festival is an annual music festival held on November 5 and 6 and run by American rapper Travis Scott. It takes place in Houston, Texas at NRG Park, on the former site of Six Flags Astroworld. What have police said about the tragedy? According to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner, organizers paused the concert when they realised how many people had been hurt. “At some point, the show was stopped when the crowd was surging,” Mr Finner said. He added that it was too early to determine what caused the crowd surge and urged people not to speculate. He also called for calm and urged people not to jump to conclusions as to what caused last night’s surge. “I think it’s very important that none of us speculate,” he said. “Nobody has all the answers tonight.” He added that there have been several rumors surrounding the event that authorities would look into. “We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened, what caused the surge,” he said. “We don’t know, but we will find out.”