This past month a fan died during a Taylor Swift concert in Rio. There was little to no media coverage. Meanwhile, at a Travis Scott concert 2 years ago fans died and there was a public outrage.
On November 5th, 2021, at NRG Park in Houston, Texas, rapper Travis Scott was hosting a music festival called the Astroworld Festival. On the second day of the festival there was a crowd rush towards the stage because Scott was performing. During the rush eight people were killed and two more died later in the hospital, 25 more were hospitalized, and 300 were treated at the festival.
On November 17th of this year, at the Rio leg of Taylor Swifts Eras Tour a concert goer died of heat stroke at her show. The temperature that day was 105 degrees Fahrenheit and before the show there were multiple reports that there was difficulty getting water at the stadium. Even though Rio was going through a record-breaking heat wave, concert goers were not allowed to bring water into the stadium and had to leave any water outside.
There are many similarities and differences between these two events and the way the artist was treated after. At Scotts concert their where multiple reports of unsafe crowd activity multiple hours before Scott was set to take the stage. With a mass of fans trying to tear down barricades to enter early. While Swift was performing in a stadium that had a lack of water amid record breaking heat.
It’s clear that both artists could have mitigated the tragedies while Scott eventually stopped performing after the crowed crush and Swift canceled her next show that was set to also take place in Rio.
With both concerts having deaths and injuries, one would think that both artists would have had a similar backlash but that is far from true. In the aftermath of Scotts performance there were multiple news stories and articles calling for criminal charges and criticizing all his actions during the event for the months that followed. While Swift has had no backlash. Even though a fan died it, was talked about less than the postponement of the show the next day.
When interviewing a student about the two events under half of them had heard about the death at the Taylor Swift concert while over 70% had heard about the Astroworld incident. This is because of their genre of music and their overall popularity. The Eras tour is the highest selling music tour of all time with over $1 billion in in tickets grossed and Swift has also won twelve grammies. While Scott is winless and is also a rapper which should be taken into account.
There are some critics who believe that rappers are not true musicians even though it has become one of the most popular genres in the 30 years. So, the major factor in the public backlash is who is more popular; Taylor Swift is more liked by the industry and has a mass of multinational fans while Scott is a rapper and has no grammy wins. That is why there was a massive blow up directed towards Scott, but little press coverage directed at Swift.