Travis Scott’s Rome Concert Features Kanye West, Results In Earthquake Scare & Pepper Spray Incident

Travis Scott‘s concert at Rome’s Circus Maximus in support of his 2023 chart-topping album, Utopia, made the news on Monday for including a surprise performance by Kanye West, his first concert appearance since his series of anti-Semitic remarks last year.

But that wasn’t the only remarkable thing about the event. According to reports, at least 60 people were hurt after someone sprayed pepper spray into the crowd. It remains unknown whether the pepper spray came from security or from a fan.

In response to the show, Alfonsina Russo, the director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, called for a stop to concerts after the audience’s excitement made locals fear that they were experiencing an earthquake.

“The Circus Maximus is a monument,” Russo said. “It is not a stadium, not a concert hall. These mega rock concerts put it at risk, including the Palatine Hill nearby.”

This summer, the venue held Bruce Springsteen, Guns N’ Roses and Imagine Dragons concerts. She also suggested that only opera and ballet recitals should be held at the Circus Maximus.

Italy’s firefighting group received “hundreds” of phone calls from locals saying that there had been an earthquake in the city at around 10:30 p.m.

Scott publicly announced the show on August 1 after previous plans for a concert at the pyramids of Giza in Egpyt fell through due to “complex production issues.” The Rome show was the first performance in what the rapper suggested to be an upcoming U.S. and European tour. The proposed set of performance dates comes two years after the Astroworld tragedy that occurred in Houston where ten people died and hundreds were severely injured due to a crowd crush.

In June, a grand jury found that neither Scott nor the festival organizers would be subject to criminal charges. However, the rapper and Live Nation still face numerous civil lawsuits over the incident.