On the last Thursday of February, 2025 at Qudos Bank Arena, you wouldn’t have needed a sign to tell you who was set to perform that night.
The flood of girls and young women sporting jorts, oversized jerseys and bandanas would have been evidence enough to clue you into Billie Eilish’s impending arrival, just as the mass of sequins and friendship bracelets had for Taylor Swift in the same precinct just under a year prior, or the flurry of feather boas for Harry Styles another 12 months before that.
The adoption of a sort-of uniform for concertgoers is not strictly new. Archival footage and reporting from pre-iPhone-age gigs showed crowds fitted in an unspoken agreed-upon dress-code. There were punters in flannel and denim at Nirvana shows; symptom-of-the-era spandex and ra-ra skirts at Kylie Minogue in the ’80s; or “a steady stream of suggestively-clad young ladies, belly buttons bared to the world, cloaked in black fishnets with tousled hair” at Madonna’s The Virgin tour, (those are the words of one seemingly-miffed newspaper journalist from the time, not mine).
When going to see live music, there has always been a designated way to dress. Traditionally, however, it was tied more to the genre and/or countercultural movement that the artist belonged to or represented, than the artist themselves. You’d be hard pressed to find photographs, pre-pandemic, of an arena packed with semi-replicas of the musician who fans were there to watch.
Today, social and mass media alike paint a vastly different picture. It’s ties and white shirts for The 1975; bows for Gracie Abrams; bald caps for Pitbull; sequins and feather boas for Styles; bejewelled bodysuits and cowboy boots for Swift; graphic singlets, mini skirts and Doc Martens for Olivia Rodrigo; rhinestone cowboy hats for Beyoncé; suits and/or park ranger gear for Tyler, the Creator; the list goes on.
The Rise of Concert Cosplay
“Yes, it’s definitely a thing. We’re seeing it across genres and continents,” says Therese Reyes, APAC Lead Editor at consumer insights agency Canvas8, of the concert cosplay phenomenon. Reyes adds: “And artists know this, with some using it to connect better with their fans.” She points to Chappell Roan as an example. Last year, the superstar designated themes for different shows on her Midwest Princess Tour, posting mood boards and prompts, encouraging fans to dress up with her via her Instagram.
Fittingly, Chappell broadcast the message via the same means through which most fans get their concert outfit inspiration: social media. TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest exist as fluid, inspiration boards that evolve in real-time to suit all our sartorial needs. Naturally, they are where we turn when we need outfit inspo for a specific event, like a concert. Luckily for punters, hashtags like #ErasTourOutfits and #RenaissanceTourLooks go viral months before a show. While fans in countries that sit at the tail-end of a tour run, are in the privileged position of reviewing the content of peers overseas for inspiration (ahead of the arrival of The Eras Tour in Australia, the ABC reported on fans planning outfits before even securing tickets). There are over 122,500 videos on TikTok tagged #ErasTourOutfits (with #ErasTour alone having more than 2.9 million), so it’s not as if there’s a shortage of options.
"It’s hard to explain and probably only funny to fans, and that’s the point"
This expectation for fans to dress up becomes self-fulfilling, too. With the trend presenting an opportunity to go viral (and potentially even score a like or repost from their favourite artist). Fans continue to level up their outfits, sharing the process of creating looks, and further inspiring others to do the same (or go bigger!). The comments sections tend to overflow with words from other fans supporting, encouraging and complimenting their efforts.
Reyes puts the rise of the concert cosplay phenomenon down to two things: The rise in fan culture and the evolution of memes.
“Today’s fans are largely built online but seek real-life community, so we’re seeing an increased number of concert attendees who bring with them the humour and culture from their online conversations,” says Reyes. “If you think about it, cosplaying as your favourite artist is kind of like an offline meme.”
“My favourite example is fans of the K-pop group NCT dressing up as vampires—a reference to a popular meme of member Haechan. Some even dress up their lightsticks the same way,” Reyes explains. “It’s hard to explain and probably only funny to fans, and that’s the point. It’s this ‘if you know, you know’ aspect that makes you feel like you belong to a certain subculture. Oftentimes, the more niche the reference, the better.” These can be created by the artist, too. For example, at each show on The Eras Tour, Swift would play different surprise songs, and rotate her graphic tee worn for “We Are Never Getting Back Together”; or on her Short n Sweet Tour, Sabrina Carpenter opens in a different coloured bodice, “spins the bottle” for an extra tune, and does a different position during her song “Juno.” The colour of the outfits and the Juno Positions in particular have become things fans track on social media.
"For the first time in a long time, it is cool to be in on a joke"
At some point during the late 2010s, caring about anything became uncool. Instagram posts that were posed and obviously curated (as opposed to being curated in order to look casual) were try-hard; liking mainstream artists too much was tacky; and being nonchalant about everything became the ultimate power move. This applied to celebrity worship as much as it did dating; just as it was embarrassing to text back too quickly, it was passé to openly care about an artist—to wear their merch, to praise them online, to be a full-on fan.
For the first time in a long time, it is cool to be in on a joke.
Fandom, Fashion & Community
The era of the anti-mainstream movement appears to have crumbled. The pendulum has swung. Now, it’s not only cool to have hobbies, to enjoy things, to be a fan; but it’s almost like there’s no point having them if you aren’t broadcasting them.
Just like concert-specific dressing, fandom existed long before social media. IRL fan clubs—an oft-mocked part of pre-digital-age fan culture—still exist, though their prevalence in pop culture is declining and they are only part of a broader digital community of fans.
Across the app store, in 2024, end-of-year reports released by companies including YouTube, TikTok and Spotify pointed to fandom as a dominant trend shaping the social media—and therefore cultural—landscape.
The trend of concert cosplay is one particularly pertinent among Gen Z and younger Millennials, which is unsurprising, given a reported 66 per cent of global TikTok users are under the age of 35. The app has become an ever-buzzing hive for young fans to connect, with everyday users and fan account owners teaming up to contribute to 360, 24-hour coverage of any one subject.
“More than anything, I think it says a lot about their search for community,” says Reyes, of what the trend might tell us about Gen Z in particular. “A lot of fans will tell you that it’s more about the people they meet through these fandoms, rather than the celebrities themselves.”
While Gen X might have amped up the aesthetic of a subculture for a relevant gig, their children’s generation is likely to go more niche and dress to a specific designated uniform for the event. While Gen X saw subcultures tied to music emerge—think punk, grunge, heavy metal, hip-hop, dance pop and even the tail-end of disco—throughout their young adulthood, Gen Z’s tastes tend, even within broader musical genres, to be more homogenous. From their vocabulary to their fashion choices, this generation seems to be more ‘one note’ than their predecessors. From slang (kids in Australia, the UK and America are all fans of “rizz”) to beauty (yes, Drunk Elephant is ubiquitously popular among 14-year-old girls), fashion (if you don’t own adidas shorts you really aren’t with it), and even the idea that one might dress a certain way for a concert; young people around the world are acutely aware of how other people their age are living. This means that the mainstream is deeper and wider than it ever has been, with niche trends turning viral—and subsequently becoming cool and even totally commonplace—world-wide in a matter of moments.
This expansive zeitgeist has, in a way, been the downfall of subcultures as we traditionally knew them. Today, instead of dressing a metal-head, you might just post your yearly Spotify Wrapped to remind people of your Superior Taste. Or, rather than wearing a Taylor Swift shirt to the shops, you might reshare memes about her albums on your Instagram story. Fandoms are one of the most immediate ways for Gen Z to self-identify—to both separate themselves from mainstream conversations and signal their belloning in another online realm.
“Gen Z joins communities that share the same values and interests. Expressing support of certain artists is sometimes shorthand for sharing their personality—kind of like wearing a tote bag of your favourite brand or publication,” she adds. “Of course, these should be taken with a grain of salt, because it’s important to remember that most of these communities are much more diverse than you’d think.”
Reyes continues: “Self-expression is also huge because a lot of these fans see themselves as co-creators—they don’t go to concerts to passively listen to music, they go to get dressed up, express themselves, and contribute to the community.”
Myth-Making, Marketing & the Power of the Collective
Reyes’ point that fans see themselves as co-creators is one with a bittersweet tinge. Worldbuilding and mythology is an increasingly important part of music marketing, with artists looking to craft an aesthetically-distinct realm within which they and their recent work exists—think Sabrina Carpenter’s frothy, 1950s-inspired marketing; or Charli XCX’s grungy brat aesthetic that has shrink wrapped everything she has put out.
When we dress as our idols, we become characters in the universe the artist has curated, in a way that is not necessarily planned, but undeniably impactful in the musician’s worldbuilding.Through their dress, concertgoers become another cog in the marketing machine. They give the artist free press as they document their outfits online, which inspires other fans to do the same and so the cycle continues—amps up, even. This importance knots their connection to the celebrity—to the fandom—even tighter.
“One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed is that there’s a lot of myth-making—and this comes from both sides (the celebrity and the fan),” says Reyes. “The most successful fandoms are those with a lot of lore, making interaction with fellow fans a lot more interesting. There’s always something to talk about!”
That lore is why, when a backing track of Charli XCX called out “Hey Billie, you there,” one third of Qudos Bank arena probably could have yelled back “yes,” and I think that’s kind of beautiful.
