Olivia Rodrigo has confessed that she recognizes her most devoted fans by smell. They are the ones who poop in the front rows, unable to stop looking at it even for a moment. Behind the eschatological joke there is a somewhat more controversial fact (if possible): the front row at concerts is currently so expensive that many fans are not willing to lose their place for a squeeze.
The fans have greater strengths. At KISS Breakfastthe morning show on the British station KISS FM, the hosts asked Olivia Rodrigo about the most uncomfortable place she had ever had to go to the bathroom. The singer redirected the answer: has been to concerts and festivals where people wear diapers to stand in the front row, not move and do their business on siteand he noticed that closeness firsthand. “I’ve smelled it,” he said. It’s not the first.
Other artists that make you want to. The first time he noticed the problem was at his concert in Hyde Park in June 2025: it is a venue that prohibits leaving and re-entering once the entrance has been scanned. There he read a fan’s poster announcing that I wore diapers to last in the front row. She is not the first artist: years before, in 2023, during Taylor Swift’s Eras Toura wave of fans was detected showing off their diapers so as not to miss a single minute of the more than three-hour repertoire. ‘Glossy’ magazine documented how content creators taught how to put them under their dresses and recommended the most discreet diaper brands.
Part of the problem. The question is funny, but there is an aspect of this story that is not so funny. Rodrigo kicks off The Unraveled Tour in Hartford (Connecticut) next September, a tour of 86 dates around the world. Prices already confirmed by Ticketmaster range from $83.40 to $799.50. General court access is around $250 and VIP early entry packages to the pit will be between $540 and $554. With these amounts, it is normal that if a fan is willing to wait up to ten hours in line to get a good spot, they are also more than willing to piss themselves.
The image of the hysterical fans who can’t hold their pee is replaced by a sadder one: the design of the venue penalizes going to the bathroom, and the fans have to manage as best they can. We can discuss whether there are artists who really deserve all this ordeal, but the point is that live prices are not going to go down, and as we have seen in phenomena like Bad Bunnyconcerts are the new place where you have to be. With or without diapers.
They all smell. Rodrigo is not the only one who has suffered from the issue in recent weeks. At a concert by folk singer-songwriter Noah Kahan in Philadelphia on June 26, someone didn’t even put on a diaper: defecated directly next to the seats. Kahan approached him the next day at Days later, in Toronto, he had the public recite an oath: upon entering the premises you sign a social contract by which you should not do belly on the floor.
The size of the artist (and the age of the audience) who goes to see Rodrigo or Taylor Swift and who goes to see Kahan is different, so perhaps the proximity in time of this eschatological drift of the concerts may be coincidental. But of course, it articulates a story about how concerts have become luxurious and very expensive prisons that restrict us from the most basic needs. Of course, it opens the door to highly expressive means of claiming for crowding and delays.
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