The festival bathroom situation has been getting worse over the past few years. So bad, in fact, that your chances of encountering someone’s bodily fluids, or worse, are 50/50 at this point.
At Lollapalooza this past weekend in Chicago, a video began circulating of concert attendees crowd-surfing a cardboard box through the audience. Inside it was a plastic urine bag, the ones typically found in a hospital room. Instagram account @edmtrain posted the clip with the caption “Passing a bag of pee through the crowd is not ok.” It has since pulled nearly 177,000 views.
The comment section had thoughts. “That’s such a f–king biohazard. Gross,” read one. Someone reshared the video with the caption “passing pee through the crowd is DIABOLICAL.” Several others rechristened the event “Lollapeelooza.” One commenter’s advice was simple. “Have a friend hold your spot and go use the bathroom.” Another took the long view. “In my day we used to just fight the crowd to go to the bathroom and then find our way back like normal people,” they wrote. “This is nasty AF.”
Lollapalooza 2026 sparked widespread disgust after showing festivalgoers crowd-surfing a plastic bag filled with urine across a packed audience. The incident, dubbed “Lolla-pee-looza” by observers, fueled debate over concert and festival behavior.#lollapalooza #festival #music…
— Tomson (@TomsonWoo) August 5, 2026
Lollapalooza Fans Reportedly Passed a Bag of Pee Through the Crowd
The pee bag wasn’t Lolla’s only contribution to the genre. In a Reddit thread titled “Poopoopalooza,” one attendee described watching a woman defecate on the ground at the Bud Light stage while the crowd waited for John Summit. “PLEASE don’t poop in the crowd / on the ground in general,” they wrote. “Didn’t realize this needed to be said.”
As VICE has covered, the concert bathroom situation has been building. A Devilskin show in New Zealand was paused last week mid-set after someone defecated in the mosh pit. Earlier this year, Olivia Rodrigo told KISS FM UK she’d been smelling adult diapers from the stage—fans wearing them to hold their spots. The decision tree at major shows has narrowed. Leave your spot and lose it, or stay put and improvise. This is where that logic goes.
Noah Kahan wrote on X after human waste was reportedly left at one of his shows. “If you have to poop at a show, please dear god just go to the bathroom,” he wrote. “There’s a venue worker out there with a 1000 yard stare after dealing with that.” Meanwhile, a Morgan Wallen concertgoer in Baltimore last month accused a man of urinating on him and his wife mid-show.
If you have to poop at a show please dear god just go to the bathroom lmao I’ve pooped my pants as much as the next 29 year old but you guys gotta understand there’s a venue worker out there with a 1000 yard stare after dealing with that
— Noah Kahan (@NoahKahan) June 27, 2026
Live music has always involved a tolerance for discomfort. Elbows, spilled drinks, the guy who’s six-foot-four directly in your sightline. A urine bag traveling overhead or the waft of someone’s sh*tty diaper is taking things too far.
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