AUSTIN, Texas — It wasn't Faraz Vohra's first time at Astroworld Fest in Houston. The partner at Austin food truck Shawarma Point said his business worked the concert in 2018 and 2019.
"We were very happy to be back there this year, and things were going pretty great all the way until all this stuff started happening," said Vohra.
Vohra said as Travis Scott began and business slowed, his brother and he decided to watch the show, joining the back part of the crowd.
At that point, he said everything seemed normal, as far as festivals go. When they started to leave, he said he started to notice others heading out as well.
"And, at the time, it just felt like these people were just dehydrated coming out from an exhausting show. And there were some friends with them helping them and giving them water, things like that. So, that's kind of what it looked like at that at that time. Nobody really knew in the back, or at least where I was, what's actually happening up front," said Vohra. "So I think, from my perspective, 90% of the people probably had no idea that there was something so terrible happening just feet away from them because of how loud everything was and how packed everything was."
Vohra recalled the moments he knew something wasn't right. He said they started hearing sirens.
"A lot of ambulances, a lot of cops, and I'm talking about like 30, 40 different ambulances ambushing into the music festival, cops trying to guide them in on golf carts – at that point, we were like, 'What's going on?' People are running. It's kind of chaotic," Vohra said. "So we knew something bad was happening. We're hearing that there were people that fell into the crowd and that some people that got jumped over and people were passing out and things like that. At that time, still nobody knew."
He said the news of eight people dying was completely unexpected.
"We were out there just having fun, while feet away from us there's a very big tragedy was going on," Vohra said. "I've been thinking about it at the back of my head at all times and just very, very sad. We feel very sorry for the lives that were lost."
Vohra said, from a business perspective, they had thousands of dollars worth of food and other items prepared to be sold on Saturday. However, with the day's events cancelled, he said they donated the food to local homeless shelters.
He said the loss of business was not something on their minds.
"It was not something that we cared about when we found out what happened. We were just hoping that this doesn't escalate," Vohra said.
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