The concert producer behind Astroworld Festival, one of the largest live entertainment companies in the world, has come under scrutiny for OSHA safety and antitrust violations, and was sued in 2016 over injuries at a crowded concert.
Between 2016 and 2019, Live Nation Worldwide and Live Nation Entertainment was cited for 10 OSHA violations and was fined for serious violations, including problems with a ladder, rope and scaffolding that caused a fall at a theater in Connecticut in 2016.
Inspectors found minor violations at an amphitheater in Mountain View, California in 2017 and at a Washington state inspection in 2019.
A non-union employee was hospitalized for lacerations in the early hours of Sept. 27, 2018, when he was struck by a 6-foot steel post that fell in in a staging area at another California event. Live Nation was fined $11,000 for that violation.
The festival issued a statement of condolence early Saturday after at least eight people are dead and dozens more injured after a sold-out crowd of roughly 50,000 surged during rapper Travis Scott's performance late Friday at the Astroworld Festival outside NRG Park.
"Our hearts are with the Astroworld Festival family tonight -- especially those we lost and their loved ones. We are focused on supporting local officials however we can," it read. "As authorities mentioned in their press conference earlier, they are looking into the series of cardiac arrests that took place. If you have any relevant information on this, please reach out to Houston Police. Thank you to our partners at the Houston Police Department, Fire Department and NRG Park for their response and support.
Billboard has cited it as the world’s largest live-entertainment company. Variety and other news organizations initially reported that CEO Michael Rapino had given up his salary due to devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music industry. Variety later reported that Rapino had only forgone two months of income. He earned $1.89 million in 2020.
According to news reports, Live Nation was under a Justice Department consent decree for antitrust violation regarding online sale in the wake of its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster, the largest ticket sales company.
The company has also faced lawsuits, including one by a concertgoer who broke her leg during a stampede at an outdoor Gwen Stefani concern in North Carolina in July 2016.
The lawsuit says Stefani made a casual remark from the stage about seats being available in a reserved area near the stage, which prompted “a stampede rush of patrons from the lawn seating area through the reserved seating area and toward the front of the performance stage, with people knocking over and breaching the security barricades and other security matter, jumping over seats in the reserved seating area, and pouring in through the aisles separating the various sections of the reserved seating area."