Dream turns to nightmare for fans at deadly Astroworld Festival

Eric and Ethan Daniels had been waiting eagerly to attend the Astroworld Festival for months. It was to be a special father-son trip for the duo from Arizona, a senior trip for Ethan, 18, who Eric said is a huge fan of Travis Scott. Although tickets were very expensive, they managed to score a couple. "We were super excited," Eric recalled. They flew from Arizona on Thursday, and ended up staying about a mile from the stadium. On Friday, they rose early, hoping to avoid long lines and spend the day in the festival before the show. But when they arrived at 11 a.m., the gates were already open, and lines already growing. Hours before the concert was even set to begin, they started to grow worried. There didn't seem to be water, anywhere, Eric recalled. The security guards wouldn't let people bring bottles of water in -- just empty ones -- and there didn't seem to be any stations to refill them. The only option were $5 bottles of water, Eric recalled, which seemed concerning since there were so many high school students who might not have much cash. SAFETY CONCERNS: Astroworld Festival concert producer has history of OSHA violations, safety woes His concerns only grew as the start of the concert neared. The air was hot, and throngs of people filled the area. "I could tell it was going to be an unruly crowd," he said. The pair found seats on a riser for people with disabilities -- Daniels had hurt his knee and asked if he could have a spot where he could sit down. They ended up on a riser five feet above the general crowd. As people entered mosh pit, general, they kept getting pushed up against security barriers. "There was nowhere for people to go," Daniels said. For the most part, it didn't seem too dangerous -- until Scott came onstage, setting the crowd into a frenzy. From above the chaos Eric Daniels watched people collapse. "Bodies were just being pulled over railing to get (people) medical attention," he said. But even after people were pulled from the mosh pit, the crowd trampled on them, because they were passed out. As the situation worsened, some in the crowd started chanting "stop, stop, stop." But it was no use. "Here my son and I were trying to enjoy a concert and just below us, lifeless bodies were being flung over railings and people were pinned up against it. Trapped against it. Trying to get over it," he said. "It was just horrifying, devastating to watch all the carnage below."He kept looking for paramedics, but they seemed to be no where to be found. And he wondered why there didn't seem to be any police at the front of the concert. About a half hour after Scott began performing, the show ended. The father-son duo decided to stay put, waiting for the crowd to thin -- then headed out. At the entrance to the stadium, they finally saw several dozen officers. TRAGEDY: 'It was like watching a Jenga tower topple:' At least 8 dead at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival "They were all in the back," he said. "They were nowhere to be found to help the crowds in the concert, up at the stage." He and Ethan both got out safely, in the end. But it had left them shaken and disturbed. "It was poorly organized," he said, wondering if it could have been avoided with better planning and security. "What should have been a fun event to go to was now a tragic event... Instead it was just pure chaos." 'Passing out at a Travis Scott concert is not a foreign topic' Shareen Memon, 25, describes herself as diehard Travis Scott fan who has seen him perform 6 times and went to the last two Astroworld events. She said she paid $700 for VIP tickets to the festival. "I didn’t get general admission because I thought it was going to be super crowded," Memon said. "We got VIP for this reason to not have this level of aggression and not get trampled on, but I don’t ever want to do this again." "Every concert I’ve been to, people have passed out. This is the first one I’ve seen death, but passing out at a Travis Scott concert is not a foreign topic so he should’ve been more prepared." She said she could tell that people were having difficulty during the show. "So many people were just pushing against the barrier. Everything was calm until Travis came out it went crazy. At one point you couldn’t even breathe and that’s when I knew. As soon as that song 'Highest in the Room' was over that’s when we started going out. Even when we were trying to get out people weren’t letting us go past them." 'People were just pushing and pushing' Seymour Yousif, 30, Rebecca Kallaback, 26, T.J. Yalda, 32, and five friends flew to Houston from Detroit for the weekend. While their tickets were general admission, when they saw a rush of people breaking through the barriers to the VIP section, they followed suit. “We were just trying to see Travis Scott,” Yousif said. “We kept going deeper into the mosh pits.” Two songs in, things took a turn for the worse. “Everyone started going crazy and throwing elbows,” Yousif said. “We were seeing people on the ground getting trampled.” Yousif said his group tried to leave, but couldn’t make their way through the crowd. “People were just pushing and pushing,” he said. Yousif’s cousin Yalda, who caught an elbow to his face, got a busted lip. “Some guy pushed me. It was physical in there,” Yalda said. Stuck in the mosh pit and still reeling from the blow to his face, Yalda saw four females get carried out by medical attendants. “They were all unconscious. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead.” Meanwhile, Kallaback said she was being “constantly pushed and shoved” by the masses. “I have bruises all over my body,” Kallaback said. “The whole time I was thinking, if I fall, I am going to die. People are going to be stepping all over my body.” 'I was trying to keep my balance, and then I tripped on something' Ricardo Guerra, 30, who flew in from Chicago to the Astroworld Festival, arrived at NRG around 4 p.m. Guerra, who has attended four of Scott’s concerts, said people were excited, as rumors of Drake making an appearance floated around. “You go to his shows, and you kind of expect it’s going to be high energy,” Guerra said. This concert was noticeably crowded, though -- with mosh pits forming in various sections. People began pushing in his section about 40 minutes into the concert. “I think it was so tight in there that people started losing air. It became tough, and people were trying to clear the way,” Guerra said. “I was trying to keep my balance, and then I tripped on something.” He looked down. It was a girl -- lying on the ground, unconscious – and people were stepping on her -- not on purpose, he said. “I don’t know if anyone noticed because they were also trying to stay up and not fall and hold on,” he said. Guerra picked her up, yelling for people to get out of the way. After making his way through the crowd, he carried the girl to a fence where paramedics took her. Once he made it back to his spot in the crowd, he found someone else on the ground. “Same story,” he said – a guy was lying on the ground, out cold. Guerra carried him to the fence. “I didn’t see where they took him after. I just thought they were in the hands of the medic,” he said. At one point, the concert stopped to ensure that someone in need got help, he said. “If you’ve been to a musical festival, you usually see people during the day who get dehydrated or they drank too much or took stuff, and they pass out or faint. It’s not uncommon,” he said. It wasn’t until the next morning that he realized the scope of the problems. At 6 a.m. Saturday, his phone was buzzing with messages asking if he was OK. When he learned eight people had died, he wondered if the people he had helped had survived. Guerra said many people have asked why Scott or organizers didn’t stop the show. He blames the chaos. “You’re there,” Guerra said, but when in a crowd of thousands of people, “you don’t really know.” 'We were literally in a concert in hell' A festivalgoer with the handle @diabloxantiago described the shocking scene in his Instagram reel. "It felt like we were literally in hell, like we were literally in a concert in hell. You couldn't breathe, you couldn't see." "So many people’s lives are gone tonight because they wanted to go to a Travis Scott concert to have fun. He influenced people to be raging, so many people broke in and it was just chaos." - 'We were like sardines in a can': Astroworld survivors recount chaos amid filing of more lawsuits - Preventing the next Astroworld tragedy: What can the music industry do? -Leaked Houston firefighter logs offer minute-by-minute look into Astroworld tragedy - Before Astroworld, Travis Scott revamped a Sunnyside basketball court. Now, nearly every trace of him is gone. - Travis Scott 'had no idea what was going on' during Astroworld tragedy, rapper's spokesperson says - 'It was like watching a Jenga tower topple' at Astroworld Festival - For 37 minutes, Travis Scott kept playing as ‘mass casualty’ unfolded - 'It could have been me': How the tragedy at Astroworld Festival unfolded

Dream turns to nightmare for fans at deadly Astroworld Festival

'It was just horrifying, devastating to watch all the carnage'

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