Did you hear about the women who hid all night underneath the truck?
Rumors were flying outside the Raymond James Stadium more than 36 hours before Taylor Swift took the stage of the 75,000-seat site on Florida’s west coast.
They went from person to person, as in a children’s game of telephone. But the lines outside the stadium last week were made up of fans of all ages willing to put up with hours of discomfort to buy souvenirs tied to the singer’s Eras Tour. Many of them arrived well before sunrise.
At 8 a.m., two hours before the merchandise was to go on sale, stadium workers opened the parking lot. Some fans tried to respect the existing line as others rushed toward the front. Because many people had been waiting at different locations, there was a scramble. Fans who tried to abide by an honor system found themselves more or less out of luck.
“Everyone started running from all different directions,” Ms. Roberts, the woman from under the truck, said after she had managed to secure a spot near the front of the line.
Farther back, some people squabbled with those trying to cut in. “Back of the line or I’m going to have to put you in jail,” an officer with the Tampa Police Department can be heard saying in a video of the scene recorded by a fan and reviewed by The New York Times. Some people cheered as several of the apparent line-cutters obeyed his order.
Source: Kircher, M. M. (2023, April 19). What would you do for a Taylor Swift Sweatshirt?. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/style/taylor-swift-mania.html?searchResultPosition=16
Analysis: This made me think of social media and the influence of enthusiastic followers. Getting a lot of people involved and invested creates a demand which makes getting funding and grants easier, letting the park grow and it feeds into a cycle. If there was a key attraction, project, or souvenir, people would be willing to make the drive to visit.
