Ramping Up Festival Safety, Post-Astroworld: Concert Pros Consider Measures to Avert Future Disasters

variety.com:

Chris Willman Music WriterIn the wake of the Astroworld tragedy, should festivals and concerts have a single person charged with the power of stopping a show if conditions grow dangerous?

What greater demands will insurers be making since that Texas festival pointed up how an entertainment event can turn deadly?

And where does responsibility start, or the buck end, if things go terribly wrong at a show?These were some of the issues discussed at a panel titled “How the Next Era Of Music Festivals Will Be Safe, Sustainable and Sold Out,” presented at the Pollstar Live conference for concert pros at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Either the second or third S-topic in that series could have supported a panel in itself, but the focus of the final part of the discussion among industry professionals inevitably focused on “safe.” And while much of the overall conference otherwise took on a post-quarantine “we’re back, baby!” tone, this one took on an elephant that has very much not left the room, even if Travis Scott headlines have receded while batteries of lawyers prepare their cases. “In Europe, I understand that they have people who don’t have a financial interest in the show who can stop a show in case something happens,” said David Beame, VP of global events & experiences for Global Citizen, the philanthropic organization that has put on all-star shows in Central Park and around the world. “If that’s the case, what does that look like in the U.S.?” Beame said that Global Citizen has “a very robust plan that’s like, ‘in case of this,’ we identify the few people who can make that call.