Concert Security v. Artists

Concert Security.

Most things in life involve a balance of perspectives. Almost even fight would be solved were it possible for the two combatants to sit down over a Mai Tai and share life stories, Okay, that’s a little bit of bulls**t, but it’s only a little bit of bullshit.

Why I bring this up is music-related. Of course it is. We’re not talking Beatles versus Rolling Stones here. We’re talking about major performing artists and the security staff at the venue they perform at.

I know, as a fan, it’s easy to paint security as the bad guy, telling you what you can’r do, watching you, making you keep your coolers out of the space. And once in a while you get that stereotypical jack-booted thug who’s just throwing their weight around, but security, and the artists and the venue they’re there to protect, have to exist in a delicate balance.

There are more than a few notable instances where the artist called out security for everything from delaying medical attention (Billie Eilish at her 2021 Gov Ball performance) to not allowing a fan onstage (Elton John at a 2019 concert in Perth, Australia, which also came to calling the security c**ts and morons.) to simply giving a fan an extra pair of sunglasses that security took away (Beyonce, with true class.)

The balance is set so that the artist always has to take the fans’ sides in an obvious dispute with security or be label unresponsive to her fans. And in a lot of cases, security has to take it on the chin. Security staff can’t afford to be lax when fans are pushing at the barricades between them and their favorite singer. Security has been lax at concerts, and they’ll be the first ones blamed if chaos breaks out.

On the other hand, security has to draw a line between enforcing the rules and them becoming a feature of the show, which not even they want.

I mean, fans could just agree to be behaved at shows, but the odds of that happening en masse are the same as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sharing their life stories over a Mai Tai.