Three years after a Taylor Swift fan died before her concert in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has made official a new law to protect attendees in case of extreme heat. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has called two new decrees the “Taylor Swift law.”
In November 2023, a woman named Ana Clara Benevides was waiting in the front row for the artist’s concert when she fainted and had to be taken to the hospital, where she finally died after a second cardiac arrest. Later, it was confirmed that it was due to high temperatures. Swift ended up postponing the show.
At the time, it was reported that fans had not been able to enter the Nilton Santos stadium with water. The artist stopped the concert on several occasions to distribute bottles and the fire brigades assured that around a thousand people fainted due to the heat.
The first of the decrees makes it a legal obligation for events and venues with more than 1,000 people to have free water, in addition to allowing the public to bring their own water bottles. The second is a measure against speculation: ticket companies must now indicate additional costs clearly and early during the purchase process, avoiding surprises at the time of payment.
What is the law in Spain?
We have all had to go through the unpleasant experience of throwing away our water bottle before entering the venue, or at least having to remove the cap for safety reasons, which in one way or another forces you to not be able to keep the water for the duration of the event.
Since July 2023, Royal Decree 1055/2022 obliges all event promoters, public and private, to “guarantee access to non-packaged drinking water.” Royal Decree 3/2023 also establishes it clearly: “Promoters of festive, cultural or sporting events will guarantee access to non-packaged tap water for consumption.”
That is, it is mandatory that there be drinking water in any of these types of premises. Another thing is that you can enter with your bottle of water, as has clearly been allowed in Brazil. And another even more confusing one is that the law does not explicitly state that “access to non-packaged drinking water” must be free, as is the case in the hospitality sector. However, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs establishes that “the prohibition of introducing food and drink may be abusive if their consumption through purchase is allowed within the premises.”
It’s all quite confusing, but festivals like Madrid Salvaje and Reggaeton Beach Festival have already received heavy fines for these same practices. At the end of last July, Consumption announced a fine of 320,000 euros against the organizing company of Reggaeton Beach and one of the infractions cited was prohibiting entry to the venue with food and drink from outside.
