Travis Scott and other organizers of the Astroworld music festival in Houston are already facing at least one lawsuit over Friday’s deadly crowd surge, filed by an injured concertgoer who called the incident a “predictable and preventable tragedy.”

In a petition filed Saturday in Harris County District Court, Astroworld attendee Manuel Souza sued Scott himself, as well as organizer ScoreMore and concert giant Live Nation, over the Friday night incident, which left eight dead and dozens more injured.

The lawsuit claims the disaster was the direct result of “a motivation for profit at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety” and the “encouragement of violence.”

“Defendants failed to properly plan and conduct the concert in a safe manner,” wrote Souza’s attorney, Steve Kherkher of the firm Kherkher Garcia LLP. “Instead, they consciously ignored the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers, and, in some cases actively encouraged and fomented dangerous behaviors.”

Representatives for Scott, Scoremore and Live Nation did not immediately return requests for comment on Sunday (Nov. 7).

The case is one of the first of many lawsuits that are expected to be filed over the incident, which appears to be one of the deadliest crowd disasters at a music event in years.

The crush occurred during the first night of a two-day festival attended by more than 50,000 people. The event, named for one of Scott’s albums, was hosted at the NRG Park stadium complex in his hometown of Houston. The exact cause of the disaster and the timeline events are still unclear, but videos and witness accounts appear to indicate a chaotic scene in which the already-rowdy crowd surged toward the stage, making it difficult for some to breathe.

In the new lawsuit, Souza claims that the Astroworld organizers disregarded warning signs earlier in the day, like an incident in which “concertgoers breached a security gate around the park, stampeded into the premises, and trampled over one another.”

Even after ambulances arrived to treat attendees who had “suffered serious obvious injury,” the suit says the organizers “made the conscious decision to let the show go on, despite the extreme risk of harm to concertgoers that was escalating by the moment.”

“Eventually, due to defendants’ active decision to let the show go on, the scene devolved into a complete melee, resulting in the needless, untimely death of at least 8 people and injuries to scores of others,” Souza’s attorneys wrote.

In addition to actions by organizers, the suit tries to pin blame on Scott himself, saying he was known for hosting intense concerts and encouraging his fans to “rage.”

“This kind of behavior has long been encouraged by the festival’s founder and main performer,” Souza wrote. “His express encouragement of violence has previously resulted in serious violence at numerous past concerts.”

In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses the organizers of negligence and gross negligence and is seeking at least $1 million in damages. Souza’s attorneys are also asking for a temporary restraining order preventing any destruction of evidence, which could be heard in court as soon Monday.

In addition to naming Scott, Scoremore and Live Nation as defendants, the lawsuit also named Scott’s Cactus Jack Records, LLC and several other individuals and companies involved in the event.

In a phone interview Sunday, one of the attorneys who filed the case echoed the petition’s claims about insufficient precautions.

“This was unnecessary,” said Kevin C. Haynes of Kherkher Garcia. “This kind of thing is not supposed to happen. There were things that were supposed to be done that were not done.”

Souza is also repped by Kevin C. Haynes, Jesus Garcia, Jr., Ryan MacLeod, Matt L. Martin and Tommy Kherkher.

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Ed Sheeran, who is out of his isolation after testing positive for COVID-19 and will appear as the musical guest on SNL Saturday night (Nov. 6) as planned, spoke about his diagnosis and recent recovery in a new interview with Howard Stern.

The singer-songwriter explained the timeline of his experience with COVID-19 and said that his young daughter, 1-year-old Lyra, also tested positive at the time.

“Everyone was saying they were scrambling to find a replacement,” Sheeran said of rumors about his SNL appearance being affected, but “I was always playing that. I tested for COVID and I announced it a couple days afterwards because I had to cancel [some] stuff.”

Sheeran had shared his diagnosis just days before the release of his latest album, =, and earlier this week clarified that he out of quarantine and “excited to hit the ground running with work again, and SNL is still on.”

“It’s quite an odd thing getting that and then having to announce it to the world, and then suddenly like, I’m now out of it, and I’m still sort of being treated [like he has COVID]. It’s kind of an uncomfortable,” Sheeran admitted to Stern.

The Howard Stern Show radio host asked Sheeran, “Did you have heavy symptoms at all? I assume you were vaccinated,” to which the singer replied, “I was, yeah, but I was super ill and rundown before.”

“As soon as I got a cold, I just started testing every single day. I was just like, I want to make sure I don’t have it,” said Sheeran.

Sheeran talked about the busy schedule he had, waking up early to do promotion for his new album, and said, “I was really, really, really rundown and then just one day I caught it [COVID-19].”

“My wife was away, so, I was there with my daughter. Basically, it was me and my daughter for a week. She had it, too, so it was kind of heavy. Three days of really, really bad symptoms, I think,” Sheeran recalled.

Watch his interview clip with Stern below.

Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Peña is warning that the death toll could rise following the tragedy at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival on Friday night (Nov. 5).

At press time, eight people died and about 300 were injured as Scott performed the closing set during the festival’s opening night at NRG Park in Houston, with fans surging toward the stage and pushing so close together that they reportedly couldn’t move their arms or breathe.

“What we know is that we have eight people who have died as a result of the injuries suffered at at that event,” Peña told MSNBC on Saturday morning. “That number may rise, because we did transport more people in critical condition. We took 11 that they were performing CPR on en route to the hospital.”

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said that the ages of those killed at the Live Nation-produced festival were between the ages of 16 and 23. The names of the casualties have not yet been made public. A press conference is set for 4 p.m. ET on Saturday with police, firefighters, Turner and others involved in the ongoing investigation.

During a press conference on Friday night, Peña said a “mass casualty” event occurred at 9:38 p.m. local time at NRG Park, with an estimated 50,000 people in attendance. He said trouble began shortly after 9 p.m. when “the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage and that caused some panic and started causing some injuries. People began to fall out and become unconscious and that created additional panic.” Peña said Astroworld’s medical tent and staff was “quickly overwhelmed” by the scale of the incident, after which the Houston fire department stepped in and dispatched 50 units.

The fire chief added on Saturday morning that authorities “still don’t know what caused the initial surge of crowd up toward the stage, but the Houston Police Department is looking at video that was taken from cameras that were present there for security purposes and other reasons.”

Peña also noted that Scott and Live Nation made the call to “essentially pull the plug” on the event on Friday “when the when the situation started to escalate.” Astroworld representatives confirmed that the second day of the festival, schedule for Saturday evening, has been canceled as a result of the tragedy.

“We will be dissecting this thing in its entirety,” the fire chief said. “I’ve been doing this for 27 years and I have never seen something like this.”