A food vendor who took part in rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival on the weekend of November 5 is speaking out about what she describes as disorganization and chaos in the weeks and days leading up to the event, at which nine people died during a crowd crush, in what is now considered one of the most deadly live music events in U.S.
Vivares is one of a handful of Astroworld vendors hosting Bun B Presents: Breaking Bread, a fundraiser for the victims of the event where scores of concertgoers died or were seriously injured.
Her experience seems to mirror other alleged problems leading up to and during the festival, which may have contributed to the overall discord during the 2021 event.
Vivares says Spectrum will compile a list of vendors they have worked with in the past, and then present that list to the concert promoter.
Then, about a week before Astroworld was to begin, Vivares was informed that her setup time had been pushed back from 8 a.m.
Still, Vivares was looking forward to serving food at a major festival.
As load-in began, Vivares says security personnel would not let her employees drive into the festival to unload close to the vending area — eventually, she had to park at a Fiesta Mart grocery store more than a mile away.
Still, Vivares made sure all her employees were tested ahead of time in order to counter any delays from on-site testing.
She had anticipated better sales for Saturday, though, because more people had the day off to attend the festival, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the delay of setting up, but the tragic events of the first night of concerts placed her and fellow vendors in a difficult spot.
Following the events of that Friday night, on which more than 50,000 people were in attendance, concertgoers, media, and public officials provided accounts of systemic failures even before the festival began that may have contributed to the deadly crowd incidents, including alleged failures of coordination between security and local fire and safety personnel, reports that Houston Police Department Chief Travis Finner met with Scott before the rapper’s closing set to express public safety concerns, and a report from the Houston Chronicle that Astroworld’s 56-page operations plan failed to account for crowd surges and other safety issues.
On Friday night, after Scott’s set ended, Vivares closed up her food truck and headed to her other restaurant, Sticky’s Chicken, in Sawyer Yards.
According to festival maps, the food trucks were scattered throughout the festival, with some behind the crowds and some between stages, which would have made seeing what was happening near the front of the stage difficult.
Vendors will include Eatsie Boys, Blk Mkt Birria, Seoulside Wings, OhMyGogi, Happy Endings, and the Waffle Bus, plus Vivares’s restaurants.