As a crowd of mostly women danced the night away at Pitbull’s recent concert in London, barely a hair was out of place.
Event Context
“It’s embarrassing if you don’t come with one,” Kirsty Downes, 35, said as several other Pitbull lookalikes strode through Hyde Park on the way to the show.
But as Downes and other members of the bald-capped brigade often learn, loyalty can come at a price.
“You start walking off with the wrong Pitbull,” said Downes. “I’m walking and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m with Denise, and no, I’m not, I’m with Dave. I don’t know Dave.”
Factor in the patchy phone service that often occurs at large events, and getting lost is almost inevitable.
“We lost [our friend] Wendy like 5 minutes ago,” said Rosie Floyd, 32, who was with her mother and friends at the show. “It’s like, ‘Which bald cap is our bald cap?’”
The bald-cap trend at Pitbull shows emerged after the pandemic, and has grown thanks to viral social-media videos. Fans say wearing the look gives them a sense of freedom and infectious joy, and it creates an instant sense of community with total strangers.
Sales for bald caps on TikTok Shop have been up 1,200% during Pitbull’s current U.K. tour.
The phenomenon reflects a broader shift in concert culture into participatory fandom. People don’t just attend shows; they arrive in elaborate, artist-inspired outfits, from Taylor Swift fans trading friendship bracelets to Beyoncé fans donning cowboy hats.
Pitbull (the real one) has embraced the tradition and affectionately calls his fans “The Bald-Es” because they “fly high like bald eagles.” At the London show, he and over 22,000 fans set the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people wearing bald caps.
“You know when I’m in your city at this point,” the Miami-born rapper said before accepting a framed Guinness World Records certificate. “To all the Bald-Es, without y’all like I said before, there’s no Pitbull, no movement, no revolution.”
Charlotte Guy, a 25-year-old waitress, attended a Pitbull concert earlier in July in Lancashire with four friends, all of whom were dressed as Pitbull.
“I had to go over to security being like, ‘Excuse me, I’ve lost my friends,’” Guy said. She reunited with her original group near the exits. When she arrived home, she roused her partner to watch the England-Mexico World Cup match.
“He’s probably thinking, ‘What is going on?’” Guy said. “‘She’s just woke me up at 3 in the morning dressed as Pitbull. Now we need to watch some football.’”
At least one woman anticipated the chaos: Katie Bale, 54, of Hampshire, took her friends and family to see the show, but planned for her group to affix bright yellow arrows to the tops of their bald caps.
Match Outlook
About two songs into his set, she made the fateful decision of leaving to go to the bathroom. She couldn’t find her friends when she returned.
“I just forgot I was dressed as Pitbull,” she said. “I didn’t think about how hard it actually would be, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not going to be able to find them.’”
Guy scanned the sea of bald caps in vain, then panicked. Looking to her right, she saw a group of eight people also dressed as Pitbull.
“I thought, ‘These are my people,’” she said, and spent the rest of the concert with her new crew.
After the show, she approached the security stand.
Bale said people standing near her started to use her group as markers, with one asking her to stay in place while she went to the bathroom so she could find her boyfriend.
Ryan Kerner, an attorney from St. Louis, Mo., was puzzled and delighted when he saw groups of Bald-Es near Hyde Park on the day of the concert.
The 52-year-old, who is bald, was in London on a family trip. He asked a group for a photo, and they told him they were headed to the show. Kerner’s family were already fans—he and his wife had dressed up as Pitbull and Kesha in 2014 for Halloween—and they lucked into last-minute tickets.
At the concert, Kerner became a temporary celebrity. Attendees pointed, shouted and asked for photos with him.
“They wanted to rub my head, like a genie lamp,” he said.
Though Kerner’s hairline receded years ago, his passion for the artist hasn’t.
His 18-year-old daughter, Morgan, lost sight of her dad a few times in the crowd. She learned to spot him by looking for “the most excited one there.”
“There’s not too many people who want this look,” Kerner said. “It’s a life lesson right, maybe we all should embrace our imperfections a bit more.”
“Just be a little more bald,” Morgan added.
Kerner said it was one of the best concerts he’s ever attended.
“I was with my people,” he said.
Write to Julia Munslow at [email protected]
