Taylor Swift‘s fans have started a petition to make it law for venues to offer free water at all gigs, following the death of a fan at a recent ‘Eras’ tour show in Rio de Janeiro.
Ana Clara Benevides died after suffering a cardiac arrest while attending Swift’s show in Rio de Janeiro last month. She was aged just 23. It came after temperatures in Brazil reached over 100 degrees (38 Celsius) on that day, and videos later circulated online of Swift pausing her show to make sure fans received water.
Following news of her death, Swift took to social media to say that she was left “devastated” by the announcement, and later cancelled the following show in the city due to the extreme temperatures. She later met with Benevides’ family to offer her condolences.
Now, in response to Benevides’ death, Swifties have been campaigning to make having free water available at gigs a legal requirement, which they call the Ana Benevides Law. At the venue where she died, fans had been told they were not allowed to bring their own water in.
“At one of the two most anticipated events this year, someone died right before our eyes due to pure negligence. Brazilian consumers are exhausted from being disrespected by million dollar companies that do not care about them,” the petition reads.
“That’s why we’re introducing the Ana Benevides Law, which will guarantee free distribution of water at events.
“The event sector is embarrassed by the lack of responsibility of the company responsible for the annual event. We want to see a change so that no one has to die just for attending a concert.”
At the time of writing, the petition has received close to 350,000 signatures.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that Swift will reportedly earn over $100million (£78million) from Spotify streams alone in 2023.
The popstar was recently crowned Spotify’s Top Global Artist of 2023, with Swift racking up over 26 billion streams on the platform.
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