A timeline of the Astroworld festival as it went deadly

Police are investigating the potential causes of the surge, which occurred during the Astroworld festival at NRG Park and left eight people dead as well as many more injured. The show continued for 40 minutes after the first reports of injured spectators reached first responders.

Before the show: Early in the day video of CNN affiliate KPRC showed many people rushing into a VIP entrance at the event – knocking down metal detectors and other people while ignoring security personnel.

“We know people jumped over the fence,” and at least one person was injured in the afternoon scramble, Peña said.

CNN asked Peña if the proceeding led to any special precautions during this year’s event. “Obviously if they did, they weren’t enough,” Peña replied.

CNN has reached out to Houston Police and representatives for Travis Scott for comment on the New York Times report.

Before 9 p.m. central time: Madeline Eskins, an intensive care nurse attending the show, told CNN’s Christi Paul that a countdown started about 30 minutes before Scott was ready to appear on stage.

“And all of a sudden people were squeezing into each other and pushing forward and backward. As the stopwatch got closer to zero, it just got worse and worse. worse, ”Eskins said.

“We didn’t know hell was about to break loose. People started to pass out and fall to the ground,” Schmidt told CNN.

“The crowd got tighter and tighter, and at that point it was hard to breathe. When Travis came out performing his first song, I saw people passing out next to me,” he said. said TK Tellez.

Sarai Sierra, who attended the festival to celebrate her birthday, said she saw several people unable to breathe after Scott appeared on stage.

“I really thought if I fell it would have been the end of me. I spent at least 15 minutes getting pushed around by mosh pits or just because people were ‘raging’,” Sierra said.

9:30 p.m .: Officials first received reports of people falling injured in the crowd, according to Peña, and said they had “requested additional resources at the scene.”

Finner said at a press conference on Saturday that “our people got together and immediately went to the producers and said, ‘Hey, people are falling apart.'”

9:38 p.m .: A “mass event” has been officially declared, Peña said.

“From the moment the incident claimed a large number of victims, to the first unit there, it took two minutes when we started to contact the patient,” he said.

“Travis Scott had little time between songs and we were screaming our vocal cords so someone could hear us but no one did,” Tellez said. “This year’s festival will be etched in me forever. I never saw anyone die in front of my eyes. It was horrible.”

Scott maintains he had no idea the gravity of what was going on in the crowd as he continued his set, telling fans in an Instagram video on Saturday night that he was “devastated” by what was happening. had passed.

“Whenever I could figure out, you know, everything that was going on, you know I just quit my show and, you know, I helped them get the help they needed,” Scott said. in the video.

Footage from the live broadcast of the concert also showed Scott pausing his performance and watching in apparent confusion as an ambulance rushing through the crowd before ending the concert.

Onlookers Nick Johnson and Angel Rodriguez told CNN that Scott stopped the show on at least three occasions to ask for help from those in the crowd.

When asked why the show hadn’t been stopped earlier, Finner cited potential riots “when you have a young band” in a crowd of around 50,000.

Finner said there had been a “discussion between promoters, firefighters, law enforcement and NRG officials” over stopping the event.

Around 10:10 p.m.: The performance was stopped and the event came to an end, according to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. A spectator told CNN’s Rosa Flores that he looked at her watch at the end of the concert and it read “10:13 or 10:14 pm”.