Throwing Objects at Concerts: Normal Fan Behavior or a Danger to Artists?

Cardi B is the latest artist to confront a summer-concert phenomenon that is taking over social media: fans throwing objects at performers onstage.

Within the last two months, concertgoers have shared photos and videos of artists including Harry Styles, Kelsea Ballerini, Lil Nas X, Drake and P!nk being hit by flying objects or receiving strange gifts from audience members. In June, P!nk said she received a bag of human ashes during a London performance. Days before that, a fan threw a cellphone so hard at Bebe Rexha’s face that the singer said she had to get stitches.

The Cardi B incident revealed the complexity of the issue. While performing her song “Bodak Yellow” at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas on Saturday, the rapper threw her microphone at an audience member after the person allegedly threw a drink at her, according to social-media videos of the incident. A spokesperson for Drai’s Beachclub declined to comment.

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, a concertgoer filed a police report Sunday for battery after being hit by “an item that was thrown from the stage,” though it wasn’t clear whether it was filed by the same person accused of throwing a drink.

Other footage from the concert showed Cardi B encouraging people to douse her with water because of the high temperatures that day. Meanwhile, TikTok videos of her Friday performance also showed her throwing a microphone at the DJ. Representatives for Cardi B did not return a request for comment.

High-profile artists have expressed concern about the string of incidents. Adele warned fans not to throw anything at her during one of her Vegas residency concerts. Charlie Puth chastised out-of-line concertgoers on social media. This weekend, during her Vegas residency, Kelly Clarkson told fans that if they wanted to throw anything, they could only throw diamonds.

Are people actually turning to increasingly extreme behavior at concerts? Or is this just the latest spin on a fan tradition?

Audience members at Tom Jones’s concerts regularly threw underwear at the singer while he performed, and fans often threw bras and flowers at Elvis Presley. Today, many fans make signs and costumes designed to get the attention of stars onstage.

But the recent incidents have been confrontational and occasionally violent. Ava Max, another singer, was slapped mid-song by a fan who rushed the stage in June.

Several venue organizers said they had yet to see a real cause for concern.

“It is such an exceedingly, infinitesimally rare thing that it’s not the type of issue that really comes to the fore,” said Audrey Fix Schaefer, communications director for Washington, D.C.-based concert and production company I.M.P. “We’re not hearing from the artists about it, and that’s crucial.”

Fix Schaefer has seen some fans throw flowers, she said, and the flag of England one time (at an English artist), but even flowers are rare. Across all five venues I.M.P. operates, she said, concertgoers have been well-behaved.

Concert safety protocols have been heightened in recent years, particularly after a bomb killed more than 20 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in 2017. Policies requiring clear bags have been implemented in many stadiums, and belongings are typically screened at most performance venues, often by security personnel and metal detectors. Objects such as glass bottles, laser pointers and umbrellas are usually not allowed inside. A crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in 2021 that led to the deaths of 10 people demonstrated the potential dangers of crowd behavior.

“We run a pretty tight ship,” said Erin Anderson, executive director of the Idaho Botanical Garden. “We already have a list of items that are not allowed to be brought into the venues.”

“We’ve never worked with an artist that has restricted something completely outside from what we already restrict,” she added.

Any requests artists make to restrict specific items are honored, Anderson noted. The botanical garden houses the performance venue Outlaw Field, where Ballerini was hit in the eye with a friendship bracelet during a June performance. That was the first time Anderson had seen something like that happen in her seven years working there, she added.

Ballerini has been encouraging fans to make and exchange friendship bracelets with her during her tour, said Amanda Florin, a 29-year-old fan who witnessed the incident, though she never asked for the bracelets to be thrown at her. Ballerini couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“I’ve seen handwritten letters thrown at the stage, but not at her,” said Florin, who has seen Ballerini live almost 30 times. “I don’t think she had much concern about it until it hit her.”

Anderson noted that by calling out specific items as potentially hazardous, venues could inadvertently be inviting bad behavior at concerts.

“The challenge that we have is that we can’t stop every single thing from being tossed onto stage,” she said. “It would just be impossible. We are hoping that by talking with concertgoers, we can start to change this culture.”

“Our goal is to always keep everyone safe,” she added.

Write to Ashley Wong at [email protected]