Before I left for the concert, my mum asked me, “just how big is Travis Scott?”
The first clue came on the Delhi Metro. Black cargo pants. Tactical vests. Durags. Barcelona jerseys. Crisp Nikes. Fans on the Violet line heading towards Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium exchanged nods with strangers in matching Travis tees. For the weary office crowd sandwiched between them, the collective display could have been quite bewildering… foreboding even. Even before the train slid into JLN station, the compartments had transformed into a quiet, vibrating procession of believers, itching in anticipation for what was to come.
Outside, the city was already buckling under the weight of that excitement. Traffic at Jangpura, Lodhi Colony, Defence Colony, Lajpat Nagar and Nizamuddin stood still as thousands of fans streamed through, unbothered, cutting between honking cars. Barricades and special security forces ringed the stadium like a military occupation.
Three fans await the metro to JLN Stadium ahead of Travis Scott’s Circus Maximus concert in Delhi on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Sparsh Asthana
Inside the arena, the scale felt unreal. A black-steel VerTech stage dominated the floor, encircled by dwarfing LED walls and speaker towers. Fans were still flowing in, but in the early hours, the vastness of the space made the floor feel conspicuously barren.
Smoke soon fizzed out, before a brief silence hung in the air — then Punjabi Canadian rapper NAV bounded onto the stage, slinging out his 2017 hit with Lil Uzi Vert, “Wanted You”. The crowd obliged, bouncing in perfect rhythm. It was an appetiser designed to do exactly one thing: raise the blood pressure of an entire stadium — and it might have done just that, if the two-hour wait that followed hadn’t dulled the edge. At one point, concert management, gripped by the unsaid terror of something going awry, pleaded for everyone to take three steps back at the count of three, but the fans stood resolute, answering with boos and a sea of raised middle fingers.
Punjabi Canadian rapper NAV and Travis Scott perform on stage during his Circus Maximus concert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Still, following an outbreak of impatient chants demanding, “We want Travis!”, when the first rumble of “HYAENA” tore through the night, it felt like every single sleeper fan in the crowd had erupted simultaneously. Decked out in off-white, La Flame finally stormed in, flames licking the stage floor, strobes crackling like lightning. Tens of thousands roared as one. Mosh pits opened almost instantly, pulsing outward in perfect, chaotic symmetry. From the stands, the floor might’ve looked like a breathing, contracting hive, expanding to each bass drop. Speaking to the crowd, Travis exclaimed, “It’s my first time in Delhi, let’s show the world how Delhi pops”. For two hours, Delhi was his.
Being in the middle of a Travis mosh pit feels less like being swallowed by some great, heaving organism. The ground quakes under the weight of a thousand boots, every bass drop rippling through the floor like aftershocks from a minor god’s tantrum. Bodies surge and splinter in waves, sweat slicking into a communal tide, breath becoming a single, ragged engine. Smoke of a thousand kinds drifts overhead, thick with the unmistakable scent of plants of equally many (and often illicit) varieties, as if part of a ritualistic incantation. Overhead, pyrotechnics spit heat that singes your eyebrows, turning the air sharp and metallic. And then there’s him — rising on a crane above the stage, haloed in smoke and flame, the lights catching the edges of his silhouette like some mythic creature mid-summoning.
Travis Scott performs on stage during his Circus Maximus concert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
But this feverish fervour has a cost. These mosh pits are infamous and often terrifying for the uninitiated. You could smell the sweat before the second song. New sneakers turned black within minutes. A kid near me clutched his phone like a lifeline as people surged around him. Someone else fainted and was ushered out. I’d even heard rumours of people breaking various bones and getting concussed in the chaos.
Rager culture is the central ritual of every Travis show. Since his breakout years, he has cultivated a live ethos that prizes collective catharsis over choreography. His shows are about the combustion of the moment when music, pyrotechnics, and an entire crowd’s heartbeat sync into one relentless surge. The trepidation of the Astroworld Festival crowd crush lingers over every performance he gives, but last night the chaos felt engineered. Security lines were tight. Mosh pits swelled, but the edges held. Even a city as rowdy, cutthroat, and notorious as Delhi seemed to hold its breath in a kind of unspoken respect, even as the crowd raged like no other.
The production was staggering. BookMyShow Live had retrofitted JLN into something unlike anything it had ever been before. Eleven thousand square feet of LED screens. Five hundred lighting fixtures. Pyrotechnics that seemed to graze the night sky. Each drop in “90210” or “MY EYES” triggered a sensory avalanche. When the backing track dropped during “I KNOW ?” and the entire stadium sang the chorus unaccompanied, the sound was so pure it almost stunned you. One voice, multiplied by thousands.
Before “Type Shit,” he pulled three fans onstage — three Delhi boys raging shoulder to shoulder with one of the biggest stars on the planet. The strange paradox of a Travis show is that despite the scale, the experience feels personal, as if the entire stadium has been recruited into one very loud, very sweaty conspiracy. Midway, he barked at a group of listless onlookers perched on a riser. “There’s no VIP at Travis Scott shows.” The floor exploded in approval. His brand has always rejected the velvet rope. Everyone is supposed to rage, because honestly, that’s the only ticket that’s worth the fee.
Travis Scott poses on stage during his Circus Maximus concert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
NAV later returned for “Beibs in the Trap.” Travis prowled the length of the protruding catwalk, firing up the crowd with the ease of someone who has done this on every continent. But when “FE!N” hit, the energy flipped into delirium. Then he played it again. And again. And again. Five rounds in total, each somehow louder than the last. The stadium screamed every lyric, as if volume alone could keep the night from ending. Even the steely security guards at the barricades broke into grins.
It’s easy to underestimate Travis if you reduce him to a string of hits and headline controversies. Born Jacques Webster II, he has spent the past decade turning his particular strain of maximalist hip-hop into a global export. His music has become a kind of atmospheric pulse for a generation that builds identity through micro-moments online, threading through trending Reels and edits that trade in moody bravado. His clipped and looped hooks and ad-libs have soundtracked everything from gym montages to late-night mirror selfies. His albums are treated like cultural events, bending sound, design, and fashion into a singular aesthetic. To many of the kids streaming into the stadium last night, this concert was a necessary pilgrimage.
Travis Scott performs on stage during his Circus Maximus concert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Ayaan Paul Chowdhury
The ecstasy of the night did come with a nagging sting. Food and beverage prices inside JLN Stadium were predictably exorbitant, which is a trend that seems to shadow almost every BookMyShow Live event. Something as simple as bottled water that should have cost a couple of bucks had been marked up like liquid gold. Even the supposed “free hydration stations” required you to purchase glasses to consume said free hydration. I witnessed many fans grumble at the prospect of going hungry to avoid burning a hole in their wallets, but few let it break the spell of the show.
When the blues of “TELEKINESIS” finally ruptured the crowd on the last chorus, Travis thanked the fans and exited stage right, promising more to come the next day. But rather than dissolving, the ragers just spilt out of the stadium gates. A human tide flooded the surrounding streets. The traffic outside, already broken on the way in, collapsed entirely. At the metro station, the lines coiled like serpents. Token counters overflowed. Trains paused for ten-minute intervals, as if even the Delhi Metro needed to catch its breath. Inside the trains, the embers remained. Packs of teenagers belted out “FEIN”, voices hoarse but unstoppable. The carriage shuddered with the same rhythm it had earlier in the night, only this time the stage was gone, and the audience was in control.
Travis Scott poses on stage during his Circus Maximus concert at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, on October 18, 2025
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
In pure logistical terms, the Circus Maximus show felt like one of the most ambitious live builds India has ever hosted. In the past year alone, we’ve opened our stages to marquee names like Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Cigarettes After Sex, Guns & Roses, and a string of other arena-fillers. But Travis felt like a declaration for bigger things to come.
After the city-shaking, full-body exorcism I’d endured, I tried to name the Travis Scott experience, but the answer had been glaring at me all along…
…Utopia.
The Circus Maximus World Tour Delhi concert was a collaborative effort between the Government of Delhi, Delhi Police, Delhi Tourism, the Department of Art, Culture and Languages, the Sports Authority of India and BookMyShow Live. A second show is scheduled in Delhi today (October 19th), before heading to Mumbai on November 19th, 2025
