Astroworld lawsuit on behalf of victim's family accuses Travis Scott of encouraging fans to sneak in

Friday, November 19, 2021
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Texas lawyer has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of Astroworld Festival victim Danish Baig, who died while trying to save his fiancée amid the concert crowd surge.

SEE MORE: Astroworld Festival victim died while trying to save fiancée amid concert crowd surge

Attorney Michael Lyons has filed suit against Live Nation, rapper Travis Scott and other defendants on behalf of the Baig family and Danish's fiancée, Olivia Swingle.

Baig had traveled to NRG Park from Crowley, Texas. He attended the concert with Swingle and his brother, Basil, who was also injured during the surge.

"Olivia lost the love of her life," Lyons said. "The last time that Olivia heard Danish's voice was him screaming her name out in terror as he was trying to get her out and save her life. That is something she will never forget."

Lyons is arguing that festival creators, organizers, promoters, security and performers all failed Baig, Swingle and all other victims.

"Each of the responsible parties pushed boundaries of common sense and turned their heads to the dangers, simply for profit," Lyons said. "And when it was obvious they had lost complete control of the situation, instead of stopping the show, they made the decision to continue. That disregard resulted in one of the worst mass-casualty events at a concert in history. It's a total disgrace."

The tragedy left 10 people dead and hundreds of other injured.

The 2021 event was Scott's sold-out, third annual Astroworld Festival. Although the event was sold out, this lawsuit points to social media posts by Scott encouraging non-ticketholders to sneak in to the event.

Even before the concert began, multiple fans were reportedly trampled in a stampede after some fans didn't wait to get in. Once inside, some people were also reportedly seen climbing onto portable toilets as security personnel worked to try and contain the crowd. Later on in the night, several groups in a crowd of approximately 50,000 concert-goers at the festival were caught on video shouting, asking the rapper to stop the show after seeing other attendees passed out on the ground.

Baig died less than two weeks shy of his 28th birthday.

"The Baig family and Olivia will never fully recover from the pain of knowing that he suffered such a horrific and preventable death," Lyons said. "Danish will always be remembered as a hero for his actions, but his loved ones want to make sure no one else's loved one is ever killed in such a needless way simply by attending a concert."

Lyons did not disclose in a statement any punitive damages they are seeking.

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