Yahoo Lifestyle What Security Is Like When Taylor Swift Enters Arrowhead: A Security Expert Explains (Exclusive)
When Taylor Swift arrives at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday, Jan. 18, to watch the Kansas City Chiefs face off against the Houston Texans, she’ll likely travel by golf cart to the same poorly lit hallway she’s walked dozens of times since taking her relationship with tight-end Travis Kelce public in September 2023. Photographers will be there to snap pictures of her, and she’ll look like a million bucks (red lip, red fit). But it will be a strangely unglamorous affair—an arrival planned in painstaking detail by security professionals.
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“When you have a very high-profile individual [coming to an event], the logistics of that person getting into the venue and getting into the specific location where they need to sit is a job and a process in itself,” Ty Richmond, President of Event Services at Allied Universal—a company that provides security services to sports and entertainment venues across the United States—exclusively tells Parade.
How, exactly, Swift will get from Arrowhead’s cement runway to her private suite isn’t clear (underground tunnel? elevator?)—and revealing that intel would probably be akin to divulging State Secrets. But without commenting on Swift’s case in particular, Richmond confirms that an A-lister’s game-day arrival, whether that person is a celebrity, politician or billionaire CEO, is a “rehearsed” and “coordinated” effort that involves immense manpower.
It makes sense, then, that Swift hasn’t attended a Chiefs away game this season reportedly due to concerns around attending a revolving door of venues. “She has worked with Arrowhead so many times, they feel at ease and comfortable,” a source told Page Six. “Going to all kinds of different stadiums, you need to send a team in advance.”
Richmond estimates that for a star of Swift’s caliber, planning for an appearance at a football game could take thousands of security professionals and days if not weeks of preparation, including intelligence analysis.
“If, for instance, there are fans that are known to be targeting [a star] and/or have been a threat in the past because they’re fixated on a talent or a personality," he says, "those are all very specialized, very confidential issues that have to be understood and mitigated properly."
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Well-adjusted fans shouldn't expect to have a shot at approaching Swift at a Chiefs game, either. "If you haven’t been vetted and confirmed to have access into her domain, you will not be able to get access into it," Richmond says. (Although if you happen to be seated in her eye-line, you might be lucky enough to get a wave.)
Once the game begins, millions of people will be watching Swift's every move every time the camera operator cuts to her in the crowd. But from a command center off field, where security footage from around Arrowhead Stadium plays in real time, a cadre of Swift’s protectors will be watching everyone else.
