Seeing our favorite artists live is an incredible blessing, but it can also be a chaotic and overwhelming experience. I’ll say it. I hate general admission in a crowd with hundreds to thousands of sweaty people and honestly not the most hygienic people. You’ll have people who will camp for hours to days to be front row and get a close and personal view of the artist. Yet there are a lot of recurring problems that come with the concert experience I keep seeing in pits (general admission) people getting into fights, people peeing in pits/wearing diapers, and shoving and pushing to get clear videos of artists. A huge part of that is because of social media. One thing people will do is camp out, there are many issues in camping culture, it’s nothing bad but it’s just not ethical.
The rise of social media has integrated much into the lengths fans will go to get videos of artists interacting with them during a concert. Uploading videos of popular artists interacting with you, getting 100,000 likes or more. There aren’t that many articles on camping culture but with a little digging I stumbled upon an article by DAZED titled Why does camping for concerts suck right now? They ask Dr Lucy Bennett, a lecturer at Cardiff University with expertise in popular music and fandom cultures. She explains, “I think this form of camping has also become, for many fans, part of the ritual of attending a show,” she further explains, “Within this camping activity, friendships are being born, anticipation for the concert is being reveled in, and it becomes a key aspect for many in the build-up to a live event.” When fans start getting ready to camp out, some will go to X, TikTok, and Reddit to join group chats. Like X (formerly known as Twitter) is filled with stan accounts who are obsessed with artists. All you have to do is connect with the right people and you’ll have fans planning out their day and how they will camp out. An issue with waiting for those doors to open is how fans can be a little unhinged. From people waiting days before the concerts sleeping on the streets and potentially putting themselves in danger.
A month ago I saw one of my favorite bands, Inhaler, an Irish rock band. They have been rising in popularity, since coming to Portland for the third time there was a clear difference since their first time being here, no one camped super early the first two times. This time someone on the community chat of Reddit said someone got there at 11:00ish pm the day before. They were in line for about an estimated 20 hours or so as doors opened at 7 pm the next day. The problem with that was the venue as they came to Roseland Theater which was right next to Old Town Chinatown. If you know anything about Chinatown, it is heavily crowded and oftentimes very unsafe and is known for not being the safest place, locals know the dangers of Chinatown with its high crime rate, at begining of this year Fox12 reported about a deadly stabbing in Old Town neighborhood. Which seems a little far to put yourself in harm’s way for a show that was not even sold out. A lot of fans put themselves in these high-risk situations for example at the Flog Gnaw festival. One thing that people found unenjoyable or a little frustrating was during Daniel Caesar’s set people kept fainting, one user on TikTok @babydollvillegas, captured Daniel saying “Yall dropping like flies.” It’s not uncommon for people to faint it’s just had him calling medic every two minutes. This is not unusual for concerts or festivals for artists to stop the show or call a medic while performing, as people underestimate how long they can stand for. Another thing fans underestimate is how long they can hold to use the restrooms at a Sabrina Carpenter concert a video that came on my FYP on Tiktok, user @itz.xochitll posted a video of themselves in pit saying “POV: some girl peed in the pit and your whole area made into a joke” everyone in the comments found that very concerning and disgusted.
One wrote “Ban queuing early if people are gonna behave like animals” and another wrote, “This happened in the TV Girl pit, at Lollapalooza, everyone was just pointing at her.” A lot of people shared their own traumatic experience being in pits and also hoped that girl got kicked out. Camping Culture is quite crazy, I can’t describe how exhausting and frustrating it is. One trend that was on TikTok was, “I lied, put your clothes back” like giving hot takes. User @superstarcherrycolagirl did, “I lied. Put your clothes back on, We’re gonna talk about how concert culture has grown so toxic. Ticket prices are diabolical, fan etiquette is awful, camping has built stress and tension between fans, and parasocial relationships are becoming unsafe taking away the genuine funk of seeing your favorite artist live” That exactly is how state of concert experiences are and will be for the future. People will not stop camping and can be very frustrating but from my experience with going to so many concerts if you’re going to camp be respectful, do your research, and be safe. For one, venues don’t like trash being left on the side of the streets from the campers. If you decide you’ll be doing this at least research the area, at least go with friends to be able to be safe. To figure out how you’ll be able to access the restroom and food so no passing out happens. All around if people are gonna keep doing this at least they should learn to be people.
