By Aimee Bulger
Staff Writer
During the first night of the well-anticipated Brazil leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on Nov. 17, tragedy struck as insane heat and lack of accommodations led to the death of a fan and the illness and fainting of many others.
The fan, 23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides Machado, was the tragic victim of this heat. Benevides reportedly went into cardiac arrest during the second song of the show due to the extreme heat and passed away at the hospital later that night.
The following two days of the tour were not without their issues either, as robberies outside of the arena led to a second death as well as a last minute postponement of the second night.
According to Reuters, fans were banned from bringing in water to the show, and water was not provided throughout the show either. Furthermore, reports show that the venue closed air vents to prevent fans without tickets from viewing the show from the outside. This took away much needed circulation from the inside, as the temperature on night one was around 98 F with a heat index, or how the temperature feels, of 138 F, according to NBC.
Opener Sabrina Carpenter also heard fans yelling about the heat, asking for help throughout the show, according to PRIDE. Fans confirmed in an interview with the same magazine that water was practically inaccessible.
“But many people were complaining that vendors weren’t going to the ground level, and that the water bottles that reached them were already very warm,” said content creator and social media influencer Jessica Ballut, who was in attendance at the concert. Both Carpenter and Swift were visibly red and struggling to breathe throughout the show.
On the second night of this three night stretch, Swift herself learned of the death of Benevides, posted her sympathies and followed by postponing the show to the following Monday, as temperatures were even higher and unmanable. However, this postponement did not occur until an hour before the show was set to start.
According to ABC News, as fans were leaving the now postponed concert, many were mugged and robbed on their way out. Robbers swarmed the area, forcing many fans to seek shelter in a nearby Burger King restaurant. The police raided the restaurant, to little or no avail, and fans fled the scene in overcharging taxis.
That same night, another fan lost his life due to these robberies. Gabriel Mongenot Santana Milhomem Santos, 25, was stabbed to death on the beach that evening.
The other nights of the tour went off with seemingly no issues, as Swift herself made sure her fans were given water throughout the three-hour concert. The third and final night was graced with rain to ease some of the insane temperatures that faced the days prior.
According to NBC News, the police are now currently investigating the company that runs the venue and concert in Rio de Janeiro, in hopes of finding answers as to why tragedy had to strike before help was given.
Sympathies and mourning are felt throughout the Swift fandom for the lives lost in these tragic events, and while nothing can alleviate that grief for the families, justice will potentially be served to those at fault.
