graphic by roxanne cubero
If you’ve attended a concert in the past two years, you may have noticed something strange: concerts suck now. It has nothing to do with the artists, or music, production, or really, anything related to the reason why you bought a ticket in the first place. It’s the insufferable fans. Lewd heckling, rows of phone screens blocking your view, excessive camping and other ridiculous fan behaviors have become new norms in these spaces, and I for one, am losing my patience.
Before you call me an embittered old hater (which I may be), I recognize that not every concert is this way. I’ve personally had many amazing concert experiences in recent years, and will continue to blow my money on concert tickets despite my qualms. But as an avid concert-goer pre-pandemic, there is no denying the turn for the worse that live shows have taken in the years post-2020.
I often think of a fabled past (2018), where I painlessly bought a $50 resale ticket to see Taylor Swift on the Reputation Tour a month before the concert. Or an even more historic time (2013), when I paid $200 dollars to see One Direction third row on the Take Me Home Tour. Those days are long gone. This year, I secured obstructed view Eras Tour seats by the skin of my teeth after sitting in a Ticketmaster queue for over three hours. The only reason I got my hands on Harry Styles tickets a month before was because my father had a connection. Without that contact, I would not have, as influencer Taraswrld once said so eloquently, ‘finna been in the pit.’
Sure, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles are major pop artists in high demand. But attending smaller general admission shows used to be relatively painless. Want to be close? Show up an hour or two before doors. Don’t really care? Get there as the opener is closing out. Either way, you would probably have a solid view. I saw DJO second row in 2019 after waiting in line for maybe 20 minutes, and walked right up to the stage 20 minutes after doors for a Turnover/Men I Trust double bill. But trying that today? Forget it. If your favorite artist has a large Gen-Z following and over 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners, kiss any hope of seeing the stage goodbye. Unless you’re willing to camp for 12 hours, that is.
But securing a good view is the least of your problems nowadays, considering concert-going etiquette has seemingly been thrown out the window. Pushing to get to the front has become even more commonplace, artists are often forced to pause sets due to fainting/overcrowding in the pit, and excessive heckling disrupts rare quiet moments in a set. These issues aren’t new, per say, but extremely heightened since the return to live music post-COVID.
But why? The answer isn’t a clear one, and it’s certainly nuanced, but I think it lies at a crossroads between the sociological effects of the pandemic and social media brain rot. For many Gen-Z’ers, the COVID lockdown hit at a peak time in young adulthood, depriving them of key social and communal experiences like proms and graduations. Many young teenagers reached appropriate concert-going age during lockdown, but had to settle for virtual concerts and Instagram lives that allowed connection with their favorite artists without real-time contact with other people sharing the space. Furthermore, the physical isolation of the pandemic forced people to create digital personas in a desperate attempt for connection and community, destroying the once-existing boundaries between real-life and digital presences. Intense parasocial relationships between artists and fans were created due to the fact that for once, our favorite artists were just like us. From Dua Lipa to Phoebe Bridgers to joe-schmoe next door, nearly everyone tapped into online communities for emotional and mental support. So when Gen-Z reemerged into social spaces, it’s only logical that their warped perceptions of personal boundaries in combination with their desire to make up for lost time impacted communal experiences in an incredibly damaging way.
Ticket prices are higher than ever before — and that’s even if you can get them. Ticketmaster, the largest ticket sales and distribution company, has built features like Verified Fan and Dynamic Pricing, which are supposedly in place to “help” real fans get their hands on tickets. Instead, they do the opposite, most times leaving tickets in the hands of scalpers and bots who resell the very same tickets at jacked-up prices. So for those who manage to actually snag and afford tickets to in-demand shows, a la Eras/Renaissance/Sour Tour, the experience becomes more than just a concert — it’s a performance of social worth and clout.
Yes, rows of phone screens at concerts is nothing new, but the desire to film these events has shifted from recording your favorite songs to specifically curating content with viral potential. And where do these videos go? Oftentimes, straight to TikTok. But there’s a new brand of concert video in which fans remove the artist being watched from the spotlight, instead centering themselves — and blinding those behind them with their camera’s flash in the process. Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed an increasing number of videos featuring fans filming their own reactions to the artist they’re paying to see — from bawling at unexpected set changes to flaunting that their behavior is ‘better’ than the normies surrounding them. This increasingly popular content style is beginning to become more about the person recording than the actual performer on stage.
Look, I’m not here to say it’s a sin to record yourself screaming the words to your favorite song or reacting to a moment you’ve been dying to hear live. I’ve done it myself on occasion, and it is silly to have as a little memento! But it’s best when done in moderation (and without the flash). These videos point to an eerie precedent being set for future live events. As we continue to decenter artists from the concert going experience, the more live music becomes a vessel for viral content as opposed to an experience to truly cherish.
Stan culture is and has always been competitive (who could forget the infamous ‘you stan Zara Larson’ squabble). But the cut-throat intensity of standom combined with the thirst for TikTok virality has taken this compulsion to new heights. Fans fight to capture viral moments that they can post first, by camping for days on end for the best view, dropping excessive amounts of money on tickets and incessantly attempting to make themselves seen. Camping, or queuing if you’re from the UK, has long existed. It makes sense that dedicated fans would wait in advance to secure barricade, I’ve done it a few times myself! However, things start to get murky when waiting for a few hours turns into nearly two days. Even though venues have begun to implement strict no-camping restrictions, fans often find ways around these rules, creating their own fan-led lines off property. Not only is it not accessible for every fan to upend their lives for two days and sleep on the sidewalk, but it ruins the experience for others who simply want to be able to see the stage at the show they paid for.
Add parasocial relationships into the mix, and stans will do anything to either be noticed in the moment or go viral within their fandom community. A fan telling Gracie Abrams she has a fuck ass bob? We’ve really lost the plot here. Even the artists that play into this behavior (I’m looking at you and your nasty germs Matty Healy…) tend to regret the domino effect of unhinged etiquette that persists as a result of their actions. And when artists like Mitski try to set important boundaries, their words are twisted and taken with an astute sense of entitlement. So maybe Steve Lacy was onto something when he smashed that fan’s camera — these artists are becoming viewed as content first, and performers second.
Of course, TikTok and Gen Z are not solely to blame: egregious prices set by Ticketmaster and online scammers have made concerts inaccessible, and therefore a privilege often afforded to those with greater economic means. It’s understandable that attendees want to get the most out of their money. Still, there’s no denying that the vibes are truly off. Something needs to change, and it’s only possible if we actually listen to and respect the boundaries of the artists we’re paying to see, as well as the boundaries of the people around us. The optimist in me wants to believe that we can get back to the way things were, but first, some of you need to stop biting the hand that feeds you.