A man who worked as a security guard on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour claims he was fired for asking audience members to send photos they took of him during the concert.
Calvin Denker, who went viral in June for singing along to “Cruel Summer” during one of Swift’s Minneapolis shows, alleged that Best Crowd Management terminated his employment after seeing the TikTok videos he posted about the concerts.
“Long story short, I was fired for it,” Denker claimed in a recent TikTok video. “My former security company said that they had a rule against taking photos with any of their performers, and the main issue that they had was with my follow-up video where I said I handed out pieces of paper to the people in front of me to ask to be sent any photos that I made my way into.”
In a June video, Denker explained that one of the reasons he got a job in concert security was so he could attend the Eras Tour without paying for tickets.
Denker noted that the person who posted the original video of him singing along to “Cruel Summer” didn’t receive one of his notes asking for pictures, but other concertgoers kindly obliged his request. “Every photo of me from that night was from behind the barricade like any other photo from a fan would be,” he explained in his latest upload. “I never took my own phone out, and above all else, I made sure that Taylor Swift was safe and all the fans had a good time. As long as I was at that concert I was doing my job.”
According to Denker, a human resources employee from Best Crowd Management reached out to him after seeing the June video that included some of these photos. That person told him he would be fired.
“On the call, I asked what would happen if I deleted my TikToks, and the HR woman said that she would talk to her boss and see what could be done and get back to me after she went on a brief vacation,” Denker recalled. “I kind of waited and waited.”
Denker said he never heard back from human resources but did get a call from Best Crowd Management, who scheduled him to work at an Ed Sheeran concert earlier this month. “A couple managers talked to me just to make sure that I wouldn’t be making any videos, but a lot of them were really cool and willing to give me a second chance,” he claimed.
Denker thought the uneventful Sheeran gig meant his job was safe, but he soon learned that wasn’t the case. “After I had completed seven hours of my shift, I was told to go talk to HR, where the same woman who had called me a month ago was upset with me for still working even though I was assigned more shifts and I hadn’t heard anything back from her,” he alleged.
Despite the drama, Denker said he was at least happy he got to attend two stops on the Eras Tour. “I still got to work one of the coolest concerts ever and I got to work it twice, so that is fantastic and I hold no grudges against my employer,” he concluded.
Us Weekly has reached out to Swift and Best Crowd Management for comment.
