Pascrell, Colleagues Launch Bipartisan Investigation into Live Nation’s Role in Astroworld Tragedy

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) joined several colleagues in demanding information from Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., regarding the tragic events of the Astroworld Festival on November 5, 2021, when a stampede crushed concertgoers, killing ten people and injuring hundreds more during the performance of musician and festival founder Travis Scott.  Live Nation Entertainment was the concert promoter reportedly responsible for “planning, staffing, putting up money, securing permits, finding vendors, communicating with local agencies,” for Astroworld Festival. Rep. Pascrell was joined in this effort by Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY-12), James Comer (R-KY-01), Kevin Brady (R-TX-08), and Al Green (D-TX-09).

“Recent reports raise serious concerns about whether your company took adequate steps to ensure the safety of the 50,000 concertgoers who attended Astroworld Festival,” the Members wrote.  “For instance, reports indicate that security and medical staff were inexperienced or ill-equipped to deal with mass injuries.  Some attendees stated that the placement of barricades made it difficult to escape.  Experts have stated that Astroworld Festival organizers failed to heed warning signs.”

According to reports, the main performer took the stage around 9:00 p.m., and approximately twenty minutes later, medical staff responded to the first reports of injuries.  According to a police activity log, by 9:38 p.m., Houston Police officers and firefighters responded to reports of a “mass casualty event.”   Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña stated that after local law enforcement received the initial reports of people sustaining injuries in the crowd, “our people stepped up and immediately went to the producers and told them, ‘Hey, people are going down.’” However, the concert continued until Live Nation stopped the concert at approximately 10:10 p.m.

The tragedy at Astroworld Festival follows a long line of other tragic events and safety violations involving Live Nation.  Live Nation has been fined or sued numerous times over safety issues at previous events, including other incidents involving surging fans or stampedes.

As Congress’s leading watchdog of the live events ticket market, Rep. Pascrell reiterated his calls for the breaking up of Live Nation-Ticketmaster following the disastrous Astroworld incident. Pascrell was an early critic of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger and repeatedly urged the Obama administration to reject it, warning that the union would crush competition and harm consumers. In May 2018, Pascrell wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on his attempts to impose greater positive regulation on the broken live events ticket market.

Rep. Pascrell and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ-06) wrote a letter to Federal Trade Commission chairman Joseph Simons in 2018 highlighting a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study which found a myriad of consumer protection and competition issues in the primary and secondary live event ticket markets. The GAO report was commissioned in response to Pallone and Pascrell’s work, and the members urged Simons to do more to protect consumers in the marketplace. In response, the FTC organized a workshop on event tickets held in June 2019 to review many of the challenges faced by ticket-buying fans.

In April 2020, Reps. Pascrell and Katie Porter (D-CA-45) blistered Live Nation for refused to provide full refunds to customers for events cancelled by the pandemic. Following the members’ letter, Live Nation issued many refunds.

Pascrell is the principal sponsor of the BOSS Act, overarching legislation that will impose a basic level of transparency upon the ticket industry so fans have a fair chance to purchase tickets on the primary market and also seeks to protect consumers who choose to use the secondary market to purchase tickets. The legislation is currently being considered by the Energy and Commerce Committee. A full section-by-section breakdown of the legislation is available here.

The Members also requested a briefing on these issues on January 12, 2022.

Click here to read today’s letter.