For Musicians, More Access Means More Vulnerability

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/arts/music/christina-grimmie-artist-security.html

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For Tiffany Alvord, an independent singer with a YouTube following of 2.8 million people, interacting with fans in person is her favorite part of playing concerts. It is also a business necessity that inspires loyalty by deepening the connections she has made online.

“On YouTube, I perform to a camera, and all I see is numbers and names,” she said. “Meeting fans and seeing faces makes it real.”

But it can come with risks. Not long ago, Ms. Alvord, 23, said, a male fan traveled to Los Angeles from Germany to see her perform, approaching her onstage with a teddy bear and trying to kiss her. Even after she rebuffed his advances, the fan joined the line for a post-show meet-and-greet with her.

Such interactions, long a fact of life for performers — and especially female musicians — are becoming more fraught as artists, responding to industry and fan expectations, must make themselves increasingly accessible while also contending with a barrage of online harassment and the threat of violence at concerts.

On Friday night in Orlando, Fla., a day before the shooting at a gay nightclub that left 49 people dead, a lone gunman killed the singer Christina Grimmie, 22, in what the police have called a premeditated attack while she was selling merchandise and signing autographs after a show. Last month, one person was killed in a shooting during a T.I. concert at the Manhattan club Irving Plaza. And in November, 90 people died when terrorists attacked a rock show at the Bataclan in Paris.

But while the concert industry has responded by heightening its security protocols, artists say they remain concerned about navigating the need for fan engagement and their own safety anxieties, especially in an age in which their every move is chronicled on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.

“Everyone who follows me on social media knows when I’m traveling,” Ms. Alvord said. “They know what I’m doing, where I’m performing.”

Music history is dotted with stories of stalkers and dangerous fanatics, like those that killed John Lennon, the singer Selena and the Pantera guitarist Darrell Abbott. But as record sales have fallen, increasing musicians’ economic reliance on live shows, extra face time with fans at meet-and-greets, merchandise tables and autograph signings have become more routine.

“It’s part of the job description, really,” said the country singer Chely Wright, who wrote on Facebook after Ms. Grimmie’s murder that she couldn’t count “how many times I’ve been at the merch table signing and had a real, reasonable fear that I was in danger.” The pop duo Tegan and Sara added on Twitter: “We too feel like this. It’s made connecting with fans such a complicated experience in recent years.”

In an interview, Ms. Wright, who began her career in the ’90s, said she had seen a rise in the feeling of entitlement from audiences. “Back in the day, it used to be, ‘I can’t believe you’re still here signing autographs,’” she said. “Now it’s become required. They expect it.”

The singer — who recalled a fan breaking into her home while she was in the shower, with hopes of reading her a poem — said her team has worked with law enforcement and keeps a file of potentially dangerous individuals. She also has a secret signal with her tour manager to indicate that she feels unsafe during fan interactions.

In light of recent events, “I’m really nervous about the shows that I have coming up that are L.G.B.T. specific,” said Ms. Wright, who came out as a lesbian in 2010.

“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, it’s a really lovely experience,” she said of meeting fans. But, she added, “It’s incredible the vulnerability that that exposes an artist to.”

While canvassing with audiences is especially crucial for smaller acts, even megastars have made themselves more available in recent years, though with more fame comes tighter security.

Still, after Justin Bieber canceled the V.I.P. meet-and-greets on his “Purpose” tour earlier this year, Bkstg, the company behind the V.I.P. packages (priced between $900 and $2,000), cited “a security incident that caused our team to have to meet and rethink how meet-and-greets were handled.”

On Instagram, Mr. Bieber added of stressful fan interactions, “I always leave feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted to the point of depression.”

Bethany Cosentino of the band Best Coast said in an interview that a majority of her negative interactions occur online, but “because a lot of females are attacked based on appearance, it feels a lot more personal.”

While she is a proponent of blocking and reporting anonymous trolls on social media, Ms. Cosentino said, “They could be a very real person with a very real problem.” And what feels like “a very severe lack of boundaries” online, she added, can extend into the physical world, as with the overeager fans who have tried to board her tour bus.

“It can be really scary,” she said.

Ms. Alvord started her YouTube channel at the age of 15. She knew Ms. Grimmie from what was a fledgling YouTube scene at the time, and they first collaborated in 2010. So Ms. Grimmie’s death has left her especially rattled.

“The first thing my parents said is, one: ‘You’re staying home,’” she said. “And two: ‘Is following your dreams worth it if it means risking your life?’” She added of Ms. Grimmie: “We share a lot of the same fans. Any one of us could’ve been in this situation.”

Ms. Alvord always tries to travel with a family member who is looking out for her. She said that now, along with a heightened sense of personal awareness and increased communication with venue security, she may need to institute additional rules and restrictions for when she meets her followers.

“For all the thousands and thousands of fans that say I inspire them and help them, there is probably just a handful that have a twisted perspective,” she said. “But it only takes one of them to be a threat. It only takes one to pull the trigger.”