At first, some fans cited “security concerns” as her reason for not making a statement, though that justification has been criticised in the days since. As one put it, “To everyone who says that she is not allowed to say something due to safety reasons, this is simply not true. She threw a party in London yesterday, she is going to play in London 5 times this/next week. She is obviously not in a lockdown. There is also no investigation that forbids her to talk about it, as Austrian presenters openly talk about that on social media and in the news.”
“Taylor is a brand as well as a person, who has a PR team behind her trained on crisis communication,” wrote one person. “And what they’re doing right now is heart-shattering and honestly disrespectful to all of us who have had tickets for over a year. There’s people who flew in from across the world for this concert, luckily I only travelled through Austria. But Taylor’s team doesn’t even have it in them to post a broken heart emoji? We don’t need a perfectly crafted statement. We feel left alone, it’s not too much to ask for some reaction.”
Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images
For context, Taylor Swift is usually pretty on top of it when it comes to addressing fan concerns, at least those that make the news. She posted after the TicketMaster debacle, she posted when a fan died and even met with her family, she posted after the tragic stabbing incident, and she posted when a concert had to be rescheduled.
At that time, she wrote on Instagram, “I’m writing this from my dressing room in the stadium. The decision has been made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio. The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew has to and always will come first.”
For better or worse, her own actions have made it so her fans have come to expect a bit more communication, and if she takes the stage in London without having said a word, it could be a little awk.
This article originally appeared on GLAMOUR (US).