The Town: Don Toliver’s show interrupted by ‘security issue’

Don Toliver’s show at The Town festival had to be interrupted ‘for security reasons’ around 9 pm on Saturday at Interlagos Speedway in São Paulo. The pause lasted about 15 minutes before the show resumed. A crowd started to leave the show after the ‘safety interruption’ notice appeared on the screen. Several young people reported giving up on finishing watching Don Toliver because they felt unsafe. 19-year-old student Murilo Reis was among them. He was with friends in the crowd when the show was interrupted. ‘It was crazy,’ he described. Murilo also reported seeing some people feeling unwell during the performance. Communication student Soemya Castro, 22, said she chose to stay away from the crowd near Toliver’s stage. However, in less than 15 minutes, she saw several people feeling unwell. ‘People were turning red and sweating, even in the cold,’ she said. According to Soemya, the interruption occurred about three songs after the audience started feeling unwell. ‘I started to cry because I had nowhere to move,’ she said. At one point, Toliver stopped singing and made a request to the crowd: ‘Ok, look… Everyone on this side, take a step back. Go back. Then we can continue the show. Please. A little more. Thank you.’ Despite speaking in English, he even used the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in Portuguese. Later, a production voice echoed in the venue: ‘Attention: for safety reasons, everyone take a step back, please. For safety reasons.’ Shortly after, the message was repeated with the addition of the phrase: ‘we will return to the show shortly.’ There was even a variation requesting: ‘everyone take a step to the side.’ Minutes later, the request was more specific: ‘Attention, for safety reasons, we kindly ask: everyone on the left side of the stage, take a step to the left. Those on the right side, take a step to the right. We will be back shortly.’ Reporter Guilherme Guedes, who is part of the official broadcast of The Town on the Multishow channel on TV and streaming, reported during the live broadcast: ‘Many people ended up pressed here at the front. That’s why the show was temporarily paused. We are waiting for a signal from production to resume the show.’ The presentation resumed after about 15 minutes.