From human ashes to cell phones, what’s been going on with concert fans lately?
NEW YORK (AP) — From throwing bras to throwing flowers, concertgoers have long gone the extra mile in showing adoration for their beloved performers — but a recent spate of performers being hit by heavier projectiles is giving rise to concerns about extreme fan culture and safety.
Country singer Kelsea Ballerini was the last artist to be hit by a flying object at a concert in Boise on Wednesday night. In the moment captured on video, Ballerini is playing her guitar on stage when a bracelet hits her face and she steps back.
Ballerini, clearly taken aback, pauses before a brief pause.
“Hi, I’m fine,” she later said on Instagram. “Someone threw a bracelet, it hit me in the eye and it scared me more than it hurt me.”
Ashley Highfill, 30, was at the Idaho Botanical Garden show and said Ballerini seemed visibly upset. Highfill, who often goes to concerts with her friends, said it has become normal to see fans throwing objects on stage during concerts.
“Things like that can be very dangerous,” she said. “It’s disheartening to see, even though there’s no ill intent, people don’t think about the consequences these people put on a show.”
That same day, rapper Sexyy Red stopped her own show when fans refused to stop throwing water bottles on stage.
Morgan Milardo, general manager of the Berklee Popular Music Institute in Boston, said some venues will have signs that say “no moshpits” or “no crowdsurfing” — but perhaps there should now be signs that explicitly say “no objects on stage to throw”. are added to protect artists.
“Everyone attending a concert is responsible for the safety of each other,” she said. “Concerts should provide a community where people can come together to share in the magic of live music, without worrying about a chicken nugget hitting them in the eyeball.”
The days of personal fan clubs are long gone, but social media users can join the Swifties or the Beyhive online anytime or receive daily updates from accounts owned or dedicated to celebrities. Social media has created a deeper sense of belonging and emotional closeness for fans, says Laurel Williams, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine.
That sense of belonging played out at a recent concert where a fan threw their mother’s ashes on stage as Pink performed.
“Is this your mother?” Pink asked the fan. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”
David Schmid, a pop culture expert at the University of Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, said the idea of throwing items on stage dates back historically to the etymology of the word “fan.” Short for fanatic, it was a term originally associated with religious devotion. And many tend to see celebrities “as if they were gods or at least semi-divine beings,” he said.
“From that perspective, you can read the stage as a kind of altar and the objects thrown on the stage as devotional objects,” says Schmid.
The role of social media has also changed the nature of the items thrown on stage. Instead of throwing a note, some hurl heavy cellphones onto the stage, hoping the performer will grab it and record a moment for them. In some cases, it becomes a dangerous attention grabber.
A man was arrested after throwing a cell phone that punched pop star Bebe Rexha in the face on June 18. According to a criminal court complaint, the man later told a third party that he hit the artist because he thought “it would be funny”. After the concert in New York, Rexha shared a photo of her blue eye and bandaged face on Instagram, giving it a thumbs up.
“I’m good,” she said in the post.
“Even though the show ended in an unfortunate way, it was still a great show in my hometown,” she wrote in a subsequent post.
While female artists have been targeted this month – inclusive singer Ava Max, who was smitten at her Los Angeles show — even male performers like Harry Styles have dealt with projectiles heavier than underwear. At a concert in November 2022, Styles was seen throwing his head back in pain after being hit in the eye by a projectile.
Fan provocations at a concert aren’t necessarily new: rock legend Ozzy Osbourne notoriously bit the head off a live bat after a fan threw it at him on stage. Some punk fans may remember the days when concertgoers spat at performers to show appreciation.
But as such behavior appears to be becoming more and more mainstream, venues, promoters and performers may seek to bolster security.
Paul Wertheimer, founder of Crowd Management Strategies/Crowdsafe, said artists often have security contracts with the promoter that state what kind of security the artist is willing to pay for or want on the show. Venues may also decide to limit what can be brought in or sold in the event space.
“You need good security to protect the artist,” Wertheimer said.
After the deadly rise of Astroworld in 2021, protocols around safety at concerts have been questioned. With recent developments in surveillance technology such as facial recognition and crowd monitoring with artificial intelligence, fans may no longer be able to blend in with the crowd after hurling a personal object at their beloved artist, even if it’s done in jest.
“The stage is a tremendously powerful place on one level, but it’s also a place where you’re extremely vulnerable,” said Schmid.
