Prior to Taylor Swift’s performance on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, her fans caused a bit of “chaos” in New York, in attempt to score coveted passes to the live show’s stage. Witnesses described fans “swarming” the various entrances to the studio saturday morning as they attempted to find their way inside to grab passes for the show that night.
At least one fan suffered a broken arm in the melee, with FDNY confirming one injured person was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital before noon, though the extent of those injuries was unkonwn.
“It was a melee,” one fan’s mother said of the scene that unfolded after SNL staff tweeted for those hoping to score tickets to head to The Shop at NBC Studios, only to have them find that location locked. “It’s outrageous that they allowed that to happen. As the day went on I felt like, you know, this story should be told because it needs to not happen ever again,” she added.
She compared the scene to that at Astroworld Festival in Houston, where crowd surges turned deadly during rapper Travis Scott’s performance on Friday, just one week prior to Swift’s SNL show.
“There were hundreds and hundreds of people there. It was very concerning, especially with what just happened in Houston,” she said.
After Astroworld, Live Nation Entertainment has absorbed substantial criticism for the failure of proper security measures to be put in place for the crowd, which many argue directly resulted in the injuries and deaths. Some have leveled similar criticism at SNL over the chaos Swift’s fans caused and the potential that things could have been far worse than the isolated injuries sustained.
“You guys created a state of emergency with the line today,” one user tweeted in response to “SNL.” “I walked away from that mess and saw multiple people recovering from being trampled/upset over losing their personal items and a girl crying with a broken arm. People got hurt. It was entirely irresponsible.”
Swift’s performance on the show was to promote the re-release of her 2012 album Red, which is being done due to a dispute with the ownership rights to her former songs (meaning she will get paid for the re-done performances vs. her former management).
Swift discussed the re-recording of her catalog in an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers last week:
