Portola Festival Mayhem Similar To Astroworld Tragedy

BYGabriel Bras Nevares4.3K Views
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Astroworld Festival Grounds in 2021
The dance music-heavy festival runs until Sunday in San Francisco, but many are concerned with the lack of crowd control.

After the tragic events of the Astroworld Festival in 2021 and a COVID-driven concern with huge crowds, it's natural to see audiences and artists more concerned with proper festival safety and security protocols being enforced. It's something that continues to put concertgoers in peril, as most recently shown at the Portola Festival in San Francisco. Videos have surfaced of hundreds of people gathered around a small entrance to a warehouse stage, where eyewitness accounts claim many in the crowd were being crushed as a result.

In some Twitter clips that have gone around, one can see festival-goers jumping over barricades past overwhelmed security guards. It's unclear in the videos whether they are escaping from being too pressured around others or if they just want to fool around, but it's not impossible to see how the former would be the case. Hundreds are gathered in what should be a walkable area for fans to move between stages.



Crowd crushing was the main factor that led to ten deaths and hundreds of injuries at last year's Astroworld. So far at Portola, which is taking place at Pier 80, there have been no major injuries reported. The festival is produced by Goldenvoice, who also runs another huge California festival, Coachella.


Portola is, for the most part, a dance-centric festival with some of the biggest names in electronic music today. The lineup includes Flume, Kaytranada, James Blake, Charli XCX, Fred again, Caroline Polachek, and many more. It seems that the huge crowds are just lacking proper control and direction at the festival, and hopefully that faulty organization doesn't result in another tragic event.


About The Author
Gabriel Bras Nevares is a staff writer for HotNewHipHop. He joined HNHH while completing his B.A. in Journalism & Mass Communication at The George Washington University in the summer of 2022. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Gabriel treasures the crossover between his native reggaetón and hip-hop news coverage, such as his review for Bad Bunny’s hometown concert in 2024. But more specifically, he digs for the deeper side of hip-hop conversations, whether that’s the “death” of the genre in 2023, the lyrical and parasocial intricacies of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, or the many moving parts of the Young Thug and YSL RICO case. Beyond engaging and breaking news coverage, Gabriel makes the most out of his concert obsessions, reviewing and recapping festivals like Rolling Loud Miami and Camp Flog Gnaw. He’s also developed a strong editorial voice through album reviews, think-pieces, and interviews with some of the genre’s brightest upstarts and most enduring obscured gems like Homeboy Sandman, Bktherula, Bas, and Devin Malik.
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