LAS VEGAS – A lone gunman opened fire onto a crowd of close to 22,000 attending Jason Aldean’s performance at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas at 10:08 p.m. Oct. 1, killing at least 58 and injuring more than 500 before taking his own life. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Aldean’s headlining set was the final performance of the three-night festival that also featured Eric Church and Sam Hunt, among others. It was abruptly canceled as the band took cover when shots rang out from the 32nd floor of the adjacent Mandalay Bay hotel at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip.
Chaos ensued as the concertgoers, assembled in the open spaces below, heard the noise and struggled to help others and find cover. A first-hand report in Rolling Stone noted how there was no way to know where the shooting was coming from; many thought that the gunman was in the crowd.
Authorities later identified the deceased gunman as Stephen Paddock, 64, a resident of Mesquite, NV, about an hour’s drive northeast near Nevada’s border with Utah. The motive remains unclear at the time of this posting.
On Oct. 2, 3 G Productions, which provided audio and staging support at the event, noted that one of its stagehands was shot but is expected to recover from his injuries. Bandit Lites, which provided lighting gear for Jason Aldean’s performance, noted that although bullets pierced the stage and some road cases, all crew and band members that they know of had escaped harm.
