Concert Etiquette - is it a thing?
A viral TikTok which shows a fan snatching a sign out of another person's hands at a concert has sparked a debate about etiquette at concerts.
The clip was posted on July 9 by a creator who goes by @pippapalmerr, who mentioned in a caption under the post that the concert was for the Canadian artist The Weeknd, who is currently touring in Europe.
The video showed a portion of the crowd standing in front of the stage at the gig, with a person holding up a paper sign visible on the left of the screen. The camera panned towards the person, just as another fan could be seen snatching the sign out of her hand from behind.
The person originally holding the sign then tried to look behind her to see what had happened, but the person who had taken it from her had shrunk back into the crowd and appeared to no longer be visible to her.
Fan snatches sign from someone in the audience blocking the view during The Weeknd concert. pic.twitter.com/6gXliB9YVd
— Pop Base (@PopBase) July 11, 2023
Though it is unclear whether the person who took the sign was with the creator who filmed and posted the TikTok, a number of users assumed from the caption that the user approved of their behavior and that the video was posted to make a point about not blocking other people's view of the stage during concerts.
Commenters on TikTok overwhelmingly sided with the person who grabbed the sign away, saying that they think it's unfair for fans to block the view of the people behind them by holding up signs. Several people also said that it appeared, from the view in the video, that the fan with the sign was relatively far away from the stage, and it was unlikely that The Weeknd would have been able to read it anyway.
"I feel bad for her but if a big poster was in front of me and I couldn't see the artist I would have done the same thing," one user wrote.
The video received somewhat more of a mixed response when it circulated on Twitter after it was shared by the pop culture account Pop Base, receiving 2.6 million views.
