Travis Scott will be performing in Houston for the first time since his deadly show at the Astroworld music festival in 2021, the mayor’s office announced Tuesday.
The rapper will perform at the city’s Toyota Center in October, which is “a different type of venue” from Astroworld’s NRG Park, Mary Benton, Mayor Sylvester Turner’s communications director, said in a statement. The announcement came a little over one month after Scott was found not criminally liable for the deaths of ten people during his 2021 show.
“Before today’s announcement, Toyota Center representatives convened meetings with public safety officials and the City’s special events office. They will continue working together to ensure this concert’s safety, not unlike the thousands of concerts held at Toyota Center each year,” Benton said.
The Houston Police Officers’ Union expressed its dismay at the news, noting that it had received information Scott would play one concert in October and another in November.
“Like most we were in complete disbelief that anyone would approve of Travis Scott or the production company having another concert,” union president Douglas Griffith said in a statement. “Just two weeks ago we were asking for prayers and healing for the families of the Astroworld tragedy and then we are once again opening those wounds with announcing another concert.”
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“We believe that it is unreasonable to allow this concert to go forward and call upon elected officials to stand up and say, not in our city, not again!” Griffith said.
Neither show was listed on Toyota Center’s events calendar on Tuesday evening.
A Harris County grand jury didn’t find enough evidence to criminally charge Scott or others connected to the concert with a role in the deaths, CBS affiliate KHOU reported on June 30.
The “mass casualty incident” occurred after 9 p.m. at Scott’s show on Nov. 6, 2021, when a crowd began to “compress” toward the front of the stage, “and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said at a news conference the day after the tragedy.
The jury’s conclusion came after a 19-month investigation by the Houston Police Department that involved digital evidence, witness statements and chronology reports, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.