Atlanta music lovers, you can thank Georgia lawmakers for the cancellation of the 2022 Music Midtown festival.
In Georgia, parks are one of the many places in the state where guns are allowed to be carried. As a result, the festival does not have the power to enforce its own ban at Piedmont Park, where the festival was set to take place, even though the festival’s website says, “Weapons or explosives of any kind” are not allowed.
Despite the law allowing guns, some artists’ concert riders or demands require that people do not bring firearms or weapons to their live performances.
In a tweet, the Music Midtown festival stated, “Due to circumstances beyond our control, Music Midtown will no longer be taking place this year. We are looking forward to reuniting in September and hope we can get back to enjoying the festival together again soon.”
If you bought tickets already, don’t worry because they are refunding everybody who bought passes for the two-day music festival.
The “Safe Carry Protection Act” allows Georgia residents to “pack that thing” damn near everywhere like schools, churches, bars and parks. So that includes Piedmont Park, where the festival was set to take place.
This is unfortunate because the lineup for the September festival was looking pretty damn good. Some of the acts that were set to perform included Future, 2 Chainz, Denzel Curry, Freddie Gibbs, Tinashe, Key Glock, Baby Tate and many others.
But fans won’t be able to experience that because everybody has to carry heat nowadays. Thanks Georgia.
Ultimately, it was the right decision. As a festival goer myself, these events oftentimes use local police as security and it would be difficult for them to enforce a gun ban or to stop people from pulling their weapons out.
This also gives Live Nation, the organizers of the festival, time to figure out if they can move the festival to privately owned land so they can enforce their own ban or lobby the state legislature to make an update to the law.