Expert on alleged lack of change post-Astroworld: 'Parents should be concerned and parents should be angry'

Saturday marks exactly one year since a crowd surge at the Astroworld Festival at Houston’s NRG Park claimed the lives of 10 people, but there’s seemingly more questions than answers surrounding the ill-fated event on the night of Nov. 5, 2021. 

Houston CBS affiliate KHOU and Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported that despite the efforts of governmental task forces and a bevy of lawsuits that target rapper Travis Scott and the event’s organizers, experts assert little to no change has been made to ensure the safety of concertgoers.

The fatalities were young people, from a 9-year-old boy who asked his father to take him to the show to a 27-year-old man whose last act of love for his fiancée was keeping her from getting crushed. 

According to KHOU, crowd safety expert Paul Wertheimer said the purported lack of change to crowd safety is unacceptable and condemned local and state governments’ responses to the tragedy as "absolutely the worst.” 

"Parents should be concerned and parents should be angry," Wertheimer, who owns Crowd Management Strategies, said, the station reported.

Ex-government health official Dr. Matt Minson told KPRC that music and sporting events that draw more people than Astroworld at the same venue have been managed effortlessly. 

“We’ve had Super Bowls, we’ve had World Series, we’ve had lots of concerts [and] we have a big rodeo,” Minson said, according to KPRC. ”We have lots of things that happen here that are handled very well. They go off without a hitch.” 

The Los Angeles-based Wertheimer pointed out a huge difference, per the station. 

“The problem started long before the crisis stage when it was finally acknowledged that this was out of control … Overcrowding is the original sin of live entertainment events,” he told KPRC.

Houston Daily last month reported that families of two of the victims reached settlements in their respective lawsuits over the festival. 

Citing Houston ABC affiliate KTRK, the publication reported that the settlements put an end to the litigation initiated by the families of 21-year-old Axel Acosta and 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez. 

Acosta came from the Pacific Northwest to attend the show while Rodriguez was a high school student who lived in the Houston Heights neighborhood.