First lawsuits filed against Travis Scott, Astroworld organizers after deadly festival

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) – A two-day music festival headlined and organized by rapper Travis Scott with tens of thousands of people packed in to party is now subject to a criminal investigation after the crowd surged toward the stage, crushing people up front.

Dana Schlomovits and Batool Naji attended the Astroworld Festival. They said, “There was just nowhere to go and no air to breathe.”

There were pleas to stop the concert. A crowd member yelled, “There is someone dead! There is someone dead!”

Witness Reese Bludau said, “I was right next to a pretty strong chant of, ‘stop the show’, and ‘help us.'”

Dozens were hurt and at least 8 people were killed. But how did this happen?

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said, “That’s the question that we’re working feverishly to determine. We want to look at every single detail, looking at the site plans, the security plans, talking with the producers of this concert, Live Nation.”

One concertgoer who says he was knocked down and trampled filed a lawsuit against Travis Scott, entertainment company Live Nation, and concert promoter Scoremore, among others, saying they “made the conscious decision to let the show to go on, despite the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers,” pointing to people being trampled in a stampede through the gate earlier in the day along with incidents at other Travis Scott concerts.

Travis Scott said, “I’m honestly just devastated.”