Fan who makes me uncomfortable at shows - advice?

EDIT: Thank you so so much to all who have provided valuable advice. I will make sure to be proactive and to be well surrounded at the next shows.

For those who seem to think it is my fault for not having confronted this person earlier, I just want to clarify/reiterate that I have never had to deal with this in my life before, so it's not something I'd ever have to give a lot of thought to. That's exactly why I came here. Until recently, I was stuck in the "Are they just being nice?" limbo, and I have read many a horror story about abusers/stalkers flipping in the face of rejection and harming (or worse) the object of their obsession in a rage – which is another reason why I was erring on the side of caution. I know this is a foreign concept to some, but I would rather avoid someone lashing out at me as I do not have the means to defend myself.

Hey r/musicians,

tldr: Fan invades my personal space at nearly every show, and recently tried to take advantage of my performing solo to corner me, but never actually crossed a line big enough for a restraining order. How do I go about it?

—

Details for context:

I am a solo artist (woman) with a very small local following, so I never expected to have to deal with someone obsessive.

I engaged with this person on social media a few years back, to thank them for a compliment, and they started messaging me very frequently on top of attending every single one of my shows to try and get an interaction out of me. They usually bolt towards me as soon as I’m off stage, stand very close to me, sometimes while being drunk, and linger on despite my efforts to be curt to signal that I am not interested in engaging. I decided to restrict their account on social media, but they created new accounts to follow me with, and anyway, information about my performances is always freely available on Google so there isn’t much of a point to that.

I typically perform with a band, which my boyfriend is in, so I usually have a way of exiting the situation and making sure I am surrounded by other people, but that doesn’t keep them from inserting themself and interrupting my conversations to try and talk to me.

A couple months ago, I played a show by myself in a small venue outside of town which did not have a green room for me to retreat in, and obviously they came. This time, they did not even wait for me to be finished wrapping up on stage; they walked over as soon as I was done playing and crouched down next to me while I was packing my pedals, and tried to pick up my guitar case because they assumed I needed help carrying it. They asked not once, not twice, but three times if I had someone there with me to help. I did not, and tried to stay vague about it, but they insisted I needed help taking my stuff outside (my one (1) guitar and one (1) pedalboard….) and asked how I was going to get home.

This was the last straw for me. This person clearly had white knight daydreams of driving me back. I was being borderline rude to them because I was terrified and trying to get out of that situation asap, but they did not even pick up on my discomfort (or they simply disregarded it).

(I alerted the staff who helped me greatly and actually escorted me out through the back and gave me a ride. Bless them.)

My friends asked if I considered getting a restraining order, but I feel like that person did not technically do anything dangerous (yet) so I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.

My question is, has anyone ever had to deal with a similar situation and do you have any tips? I am tired of being scared to perform just because of them.