Pom Pom Squad have been touring Europe with PUP this fall, and sadly had their gear stolen on November 1 outside of Milan. The band made a GoFundMe, describing the incident and listing the stolen gear in the hopes of raising $35,000 to replace it. They write:
On November 1st, on the tail end of our European tour with Pup, our van was broken into in the parking lot of an Airbnb in Rho, Italy, a few miles outside of Milan. We had gone into the Airbnb around 1:40 PM just to drop off our suitcases before the show and stayed inside for about 45 minutes. By the time we’d gotten out, our van’s driver-side window was smashed and all of our gear had been taken out of the trunk. Several personal items were also stolen, including Mia’s backpack and one of her suitcases, which contained almost all of her personal belongings, including her wallet, laptop, meds, a Nintendo Switch, and more.
With the help of two strategically placed AirTags, we were able to find a dumpster where Mia’s suitcase had been almost entirely emptied out. The other AirTag that was attached to her guitar case had been thrown into a drain. We’ve filed police reports, but the fact of the matter is we are likely not going to get our stuff back. It is a tremendous financial and emotional loss. These are items that we acquired over the course of years – some things even close to a decade – plus hundreds in actual cash from merch sales and venue payouts. There are several custom-made items gone like Mia’s stage costumes and in-ear monitors, Alex’s guitar, and priceless personal items like Mia’s and our tour manager Ryn’s journals. Journals, dude?
We have been called crazy for how meticulous we are with loading everything out of the van every night. We don’t care if it’s pouring rain, 4 A.M, everybody sick, whatever. We never wanted to make this type of post and were determined to never let it happen. We left the van unattended in a completely full, well-lit parking lot for an Airbnb in a gated apartment complex for 45 minutes. That was enough time for some people to do a smash-and-grab and leave us unable to finish the remaining shows with PUP and forced to scramble in order to prepare for our upcoming dates with Bartees Strange.