Christopher BarrettSome 387 separate lawsuits representing nearly 2,800 alleged victims of Live Nation Entertainment’s Astroworld Festival are to be consolidated into one case, and will now be handled by a single judge.
The Texas Judicial Panel On Multidistrict Litigation approved the motion, that reportedly came from the event’s organisers and the victims of the tragedy.
The court stated: “The agreed motion alleges the lawsuits arise out of incidents leading up to, during and following a live performance by Travis Scott during the Astroworld Festival outside NRG Park on November 5, 2021. We conclude that the cases arising out of the incident are related, and we find that transfer of those case would result in more efficient pre-trial of the related cases.”
The lawsuits were filed after a crowd surge during Scott’s performance at the 50,000-capacity festival at NRG Park in Houston left 10 dead, including a nine-year-old boy, and hundreds injured.
The lawsuits claim that Live Nation, its Scoremore subsidiary, Travis Scott and venue owner Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation were negligent in terms of how the event was operated. They have all denied the allegations against them.
Meanwhile, a new website – fbi.gov/astroworld – has been set up by the FBI requesting that Astroworld attendees “submit any videos, photos, or audio recordings that may assist the investigation”.