Rapper Travis Scott will no longer headline a music festival in Las Vegas this weekend while calls to ban him from performing live at Coachella and future venues grow online.
The three-day “Day N Vegas” festival begins Friday. Scott was scheduled to headline Saturday night, taking the stage at 10:45 p.m., after Doja Cat and Lil Baby.
The Las Vegas music event welcomes attendees through general admission, in the same manner as the Astroworld Festival in Scott’s hometown of Houston that resulted in a deadly stampede Friday night.
The uproar killed eight people, hospitalized more than two dozen others, and injured hundreds more after a “surge” in the crowd of an estimated 50,000 people.
“I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night,” Scott wrote in a statement published Saturday afternoon. He posted an apology video that day, saying he was working to assist the families of those killed during his event.
Early Monday, Scott announced he would refund Astroworld attendees in full. Scott, however, already had back-to-back festival performances scheduled.
Nearly 2,500 people had signed a petition calling on Goldenvoice, the Vegas festival’s promoter, to remove Scott after “the incredibly morbid and tragic events.”
“His deliberate recklessness and disregard for safety by encouraging rowdy cfrowds to rage and rush the security lines is an endangerment to all attendees, and he should be held accountable for his actions,” the petition read.
Another petition called for his removal from the Coachella lineup. The eight-time Grammy-nominated rapper is scheduled to headline both Saturdays of the 2022 Coachella festival in April. Goldenvoice, which produces “Day N Vegas,” also coordinates the Riverside County festival. Organizers have not responded to a KNX request for comment.
Travis Scott has a history and pattern of encouraging this type of behavior among his fans. He has incited disorderly conduct, repeatedly bragging about hundreds of fans knocking through barricades to see him in the past at his behest.
“Travis Scott’s whole aesthetic is about rebellion,” HipHopDX editor Trent Clark told NBC. “The shows have a lot of raging. With the death of punk rock, hip-hop has indeed adopted and patterned the new generation of mosh pits. It’s not uncommon to see a lot of crowding and raging or complete wild behavior at a Travis Scott show.”
Police arrested the rapper in 2015 for telling fans to storm past and jump over security gates during a Lollapalooza performance in Chicago. Scott pleaded guilty to reckless conduct, and a judge sentenced him to one year of court supervision.
In 2017, Scott entered a plea deal in Arkansas and paid more than $7,000 in fines for a misdemeanor conviction after police said he “incited a riot” by telling fans to rush the stage. No one was hurt, and no property was damaged, KFSM reported.
“It was even more cooler stuff that happened,” Scott boasted in a 2016 interview after a summer concert. “Over like 500 people broke a barricade just to rush over to the front line. That should’ve been the headline.”
It’s an admission and premonition many say that, if recognized, could have saved eight lives.
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