Hundreds of fans of American singer Taylor Swift have spent five months on and off in tents outside a stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to get the best possible view of her concert next week.
About the situation writes Pitchfork.com. The 33-year-old winner of 12 Grammy awards, who is breaking records in the USA with her Eras tour, will play a series of concerts in South America this month.
In front of the River Plate stadium, where they will perform three times starting on November 9, there are four tents in which, according to the elaborate schedule hundreds of fans alternate. Because they have regular standing room tickets, their goal is to get as close as possible to the stage after the venue gates open.
There are about 60 fans per tent, most of whom are young women. The organizers of the concert ensure that no one under the age of 18 is present. Fans involved in the scheme must spend at least 60 hours a month in the tent. So no one has to completely give up their usual life. But the more time they spend camping in front of the stadium, the higher the “rating” they will achieve and the higher the chance they will have of getting to the front row.
“We’ve been in this tent for five months,” a 21-year-old fan, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of her father’s reaction, told Pitchfork. “I usually tell my dad I’m in the park drinking or I’m at a friend’s house who lives near the stadium,” explained the young woman, who, in addition to waiting outside the stadium, also goes to school and works part-time.
In contrast, 20-year-old Irina’s mother, who also goes camping in front of the stadium, is reconciled with her daughter’s decision. He only asks her not to spoil her academic results because of the settlement. “Thanks to the fact that there are so many of us here, it’s easier. We have different schedules and you somehow fit into it,” comments Irina.
The fans in front of the stadium arouse hostility in some passers-by. “Sometimes you are lying down and suddenly you hear someone shouting at two in the morning that we have to go to work,” describes another one of them, whose name is Carmen and who has already spent over 300 hours in the tent.
Another young woman, Sofia, knows from previous experience of camping before concerts that the effort pays off. She tried the method for the first time in 2014, when One Direction played in Argentina. Some of my experiences mediates on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.
