Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy: The 7 Biggest Revelations from Netflix’s New Documentary

“I believe Astroworld 2021 was not an accident,” crowd safety expert Scott Davidson says during the new Netflix documentary Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy. “It was an inevitability due to the lack of foresight and the abandonment of basic safety protocols.” Davidson’s expert breakdown is only one of many insights the documentary offers into what happened on November 5th, 2021, when Travis Scott’s headlining Astroworld Festival performance in Houston, Texas led to the deaths of 10 people.

The latest film in the Trainwreck series (which has also explored Woodstock ’99 and the infamous “poop cruise”) begins by taking a moment to remind the viewer about where we as a culture were in 2021 — just starting to re-enter the world post-lockdown. It’s that energy that amplifies the excitement around Scott’s performance that day, an energy that brought a diverse group of people to the event. Many of whom found themselves fighting to survive thanks to the massive crowds in attendance.

Watching Trainwreck really gives you an appreciation of how difficult it is to manage large crowds of people safely — an important responsibility, given the lives at risk from compression asphyxia. Lives like those of concertgoers Rodolfo Peña and Brianna Rodriguez, whose loved ones are interviewed in the documentary, their grief palpable over their loss. Below are the biggest revelations from the documentary, which is a sad watch, but a powerful one.

50,000 Tickets Were Sold… for a Venue that Could Safely Host 35,000

According to Davidson, Live Nation reportedly sold 50,000 tickets to Astroworld — without confirming whether 50,000 people would be able to safely attend the concert. In the aftermath, experts found that in reality, the space only had viewing capacity for 35,000. “Which would mean they planned for many thousands more people than could safely view Travis’ performance.” The documentary includes a text message from a festival organizer sent on October 26th: “I feel like there is no way we are going to fit 50k in front of that stage. Especially with all the trees!”

A Security Failure Early in the Day Made Things Worse

Early into Trainwreck, the documentary illustrates one big issue: While the sun was still shining that day, an untold number of concert-goers overran the security checkpoints at the venue — there’s ample footage of people knocking over fences and metal detectors in their excitement to get inside, beginning at 9:00 a.m. according to the Houston Chronicle. So, not only was the concert allegedly over capacity just based on ticket sales, there were ultimately an unknown number of people on the grounds beyond that tally.

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Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy (Netflix)

The Venue Layout Was an Issue

With the aid of on-screen diagrams, Trainwreck reveals that attendees entered the audience area from the side of the stage, into a T-shaped barrier system. “This was supposed to make the stage safer, but instead its configuration created a trap on the left-hand side of the stage [where people were entering]. So the compression just built and built [and] people could not escape,” Davidson says.

Additionally, the main stage was solely reserved for Scott’s performance that night, which meant that thousands of concertgoers entered the arena at the same time.

Organizers Knew This Could Be Deadly Minutes Before Scott’s Performance

Travis Scott began playing at 9:02 p.m. that evening. At 9:00 p.m. a Live Nation employee sent the following text: “Stage right of main is getting crushed. This is bad. Pull tons over the rail unconscious. There’s panic in people’s eyes. This could get worse quickly. I would pull the plug but that’s just me. I know they’ll try to fight through it but I would want it on the record that I didn’t advise this to continue. Someone’s going to end up dead.”

Again, this text was sent at 9:00 p.m. Two minutes before the performance started. And attendees interviewed for the documentary say that as the show began, they were already feeling like they couldn’t breathe, thanks to the way the crowd had amassed.

Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy (Netflix)