The 1975 fans have been camping at the O2 since Friday and Twitter has had enough

The 1975 fans have been camping outside the O2 arena since Friday in preparation for tonight’s first of four shows on their Still At Their Very Best, and the backlash has been astounding as Twitter calls out people choosing to camp days in advance for a gig in a public space. The criticism towards the frenzy of fandom and these fans declaring themselves as “line leaders” has been met with huge backlash, as well as backlash towards the O2 for allowing people to set up tents.

One fan named Zoe has been the ringleader of this entire saga of The 1975 fans deciding to camp at the O2, and she tweeted on Friday that her and her friends were the start of the queue. She has since tweeted about them being “the line leaders” – basically self appointed fans who distribute numbers to others who join the queue. This has been widely criticised on Twitter, because they have no authority beyond what they’ve given themselves.

It’s also been criticised because Zoe shared the O2 have permitted the camping when the same privilege would not be awarded to homeless people who unlike the fans do not have a choice about sleeping rough.

It’s all very extreme. There’s also nothing stopping you if you have a standing ticket completely ignoring the politics of invented queue systems and just barging your way to the front in the venue anyway – so is all this necessary?

The original tweet from fan Zoe now has nearly five million views on Twitter, and despite a few messages of support wishing Zoe and the fans well in their “fun” camping – most people are in agreement that this behaviour is wild. One reply says “This is such an irritating and unsafe thing to do. It’s a massive pain for the venue staff who do a stressful job anyway. The O2 is not designed for camping, if you want to do that go to a festival.”

Since The 1975 are going four days, there are now separate queues of fans deciding to camp at the O2 for each individual night – which is surely an organisational nightmare. Twitter is being used to organise all of this – and it’s one of the most frenzied showcases of devout fandom that’s been seen in a long time.

The 1975 have not commented on it all. The Tab has reached out to The O2 for comment.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• All five albums by The 1975, definitively ranked from worst to best

• A look back at the wankiest stuff The 1975’s Matty Healy has ever said

• It’s time to admit The 1975 are the lamest band in the world right now

Featured image via Shutterstock.