When a show halts because someone has apparently left a "huge poo" in the middle of the pit, the natural assumption is a sudden illness. But a growing number of incidents suggest something far more deliberate: fans willing to do anything, including soiling themselves, to hold their spot near the stage.
Chaos at a Devilskin gig
This week, a Devilskin concert in New Zealand turned chaotic after one attendee defecated in the crowd. Witnesses described the smell triggering vomiting as waste was smeared across the venue on shoes and legs. One witness told Stuff the man "proceeded to shake a log down his leg" and tried to kick it away. Another recalled seeing a woman "with vomit in her hair, s**t on her legs, and just crying, crying, crying."
Organisers later called it an "unfortunate medical incident," but doubt remains. This is not isolated. Reports of concertgoers urinating on others, waste left at 5 Seconds of Summer shows, and "pit diapers" have become part of modern concert vocabulary.
Singers speak out
Last month, Olivia Rodrigo admitted she can sometimes smell fans wearing nappies at the front of her shows. "People wear diapers so that they can be front row," she said on KISS Radio. "That's been an experience as a performer that I've smelled." She added, "I think about it kind of often," with the shell-shocked look of someone who never imagined this when dreaming of pop stardom.
Noah Kahan pleaded similarly after waste was reportedly left at one of his concerts. "If you have to poop at a show please dear god just go to the bathroom lmao," he wrote on X. "I've pooped my pants as much as the next 29-year-old but you guys gotta understand there's a venue worker out there with a 1000 yard stare after dealing with that."
Obsessive competition, not fandom
These stories are often framed as obsessive fandom, but they really show obsessive competition. Concerts have become detached from music itself. Fans compare who got barricade, whose TikTok blew up, who made eye contact, who got the surprise song. The concert has become something to win, with actual enjoyment secondary. The goal is not to experience the night but to return with proof of a better experience than everyone else.
That mentality extends beyond nappies. Fans invent elaborate queue hierarchies, police line positions, scream at strangers for moving, and even tell Rihanna to sit down at a Mariah Carey concert because she briefly blocked a view. Everyone else becomes an obstacle.
The lost social contract
Concerts have always relied on collectivism. Strangers accept inconvenience for something bigger, shuffling aside for toilet trips, tolerating queues and elbows. That unspoken contract lets everyone have a brilliant night. The crowd is the point. If all you wanted was perfect sight and sound, you'd stay home and watch the concert film. Live music is special because of thousands of strangers singing together.
Increasingly, though, behaviour suggests everyone else is simply in the way. Twenty years ago, wearing an adult nappy to keep a spot would have been mortifying—not just embarrassing, but fundamentally inconsiderate. Doing a poo in the mosh pit would have been unthinkable. Now the calculation seems to be: if it gets me closer to the stage, everyone else can deal with the consequences.
Perhaps that is inevitable when concerts become about collecting evidence rather than participating. We are producing content, not preserving memories. The night itself becomes secondary to the footage proving we were there. Ironically, in trying desperately to have the best concert experience, some have forgotten the very thing that made concerts worth going to: everyone else.
