Travis Scott's "Out West" emote is not currently available in Fortnite following an incident at the performer's Astroworld Festival in Houston last week in which eight people were killed and many others injured.
Epic Games disabled the Daily section of the Fortnite Item Shop seemingly in order to halt the sale of the Travis Scott's "Out West" emote. Out West is an Icon Series emote introduced to Fortnite in August 2020, featuring a clip of music from the song of the same name. According to posts on Reddit, the emote was on sale briefly in the Daily section of the store on November 7 but disappeared a few hours later when Epic disabled the entire Daily section of the Item Store.
The Fortnite Status Twitter account confirmed that the Daily section was disabled intentionally but did not mention Scott or the emote by name.
It’s known that the "Daily" section of the Item Shop has been disabled. This is intentional and the "Daily" section will return with the next Item Shop refresh. pic.twitter.com/rc6Kqh7qoWNovember 8, 2021
An Epic Games representative declined to comment further, but the timing makes a connection between the two look extremely likely: The Out West emote appeared in the Daily section on November 7, possibly to coordinate with the Astroworld festival, the day after eight people attending the concert were killed during in a crowd surge while Scott was performing. A CNN report said that more than 300 people were treated at a field hospital set up near the festival.
Houston police chief Troy Finner said he met with Scott ahead of the event, during which he expressed "concerns regarding public safety" at the event. "I asked Travis Scott and his team to work with HPD for all events over the weekend and to be mindful of his team's social media messaging on any unscheduled events," Finner tweeted. "The meeting was brief and respectful, and a chance for me to share my public safety concerns as chief of police."
Scott has been criticized for continuing the performance for more than 30 minutes after the police declared the festival a "mass-casualty event." According to a Yahoo News report, Houston fire chief Samuel Peña said the declaration came around 9:38 pm, but Scott continued to perform until roughly 10:15 pm.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Scott said he is "absolutely devastated" by the incident and "committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need."
pic.twitter.com/ijXKslw7E2November 6, 2021
"Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life," he said.
Scott founded the Astroworld Festival, named after the defunct Six Flags AstroWorld park, in 2018. The event was cancelled in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, in its place, Scott held the massively successful Astronomical event in Fortnite, for which he earned an estimated $20 million, including merchandise sales. The live event returned for 2021, attracting roughly 50,000 attendees, but the second day of the planned two-day event was cancelled following the deaths.
