Political leaders are weighing in on Atlanta’s Music Midtown pageant cancellation on Monday after occasion organizers introduced the 2022 version would now not happen. Trade sources inform Billboard that the pageant was pressured to cancel as a result of current adjustments to Georgia gun legal guidelines that stop the pageant from banning weapons on to the publicly owned pageant grounds like city-owned Piedmont Park, the place Music Midtown is held.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams took to social media to precise her considerations in regards to the cancellation, calling the scenario “shameful, however not shocking.” Abrams cited the lack of Music Midtown’s $50 million financial influence as a significant concern and took intention at her political opponent and Georgia governor Brian Kemp.
“Brian Kemp’s harmful and excessive gun agenda endangers the lives of Georgians, and the cancellation of Music Midtown is proof that his reckless insurance policies endanger Georgia’s economic system as nicely,” Abrams mentioned within the assertion. “Quite than reply to elevated gun violence by strengthening security, he doubled down on weakened gun legal guidelines.”
The cancellation of Music Midtown will price Georgia’s economic system $50 million.
It is shameful, however not shocking, that the governor cares extra about defending harmful individuals carrying weapons in public than saving jobs and protecting enterprise in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/8cAECHE7IF
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) August 1, 2022
In April, that Gov. Kemp signed laws that made it authorized for Georgia gun house owners to hold a hid handgun in public with no license from the state. The Dwell Nation-owned pageant didn’t specify if the invoice signed by Kemp or different current gun-relaxing laws within the state was the trigger for Music Midtown’s cancellation. The pageant launched a press release on Aug. 1 studying, “as a result of circumstances past our management, Music Midtown will now not be going down this 12 months.”
As Billboard beforehand reported, pro-gun rights teams had been emailing and posting feedback of the pageant’s social media web page for a number of months, hinting at potential authorized challenges from gun teams following a 2019 ruling that expanded a 2014 Georgia legislation that critics had dubbed the “Weapons In every single place” legislation. That legislation expanded gun carry rights on publicly owned land, just like the city-owned Piedmont Park, though there was no authorized consensus on whether or not or not the legislation utilized to non-public occasions on metropolis property, like Midtown Music.
Atlanta Metropolis Council president Doug Shipman has additionally expressed his considerations over the pageant cancellation and what it might imply for upcoming occasions in Atlanta like Sweetwater 420 and Shaky Knees. Shipman advised Rolling Stone, “I don’t know if it’s an unintended, or supposed, consequence of the coverage [that it could affect access to other local arts and culture events taking place on public property]. However I might hope that as we transfer into the subsequent state legislative session in January, the state legislature seems to be at this and actually thinks exhausting about, is that this the sort of influence that we wish to have? Or can we create a coverage that has exemptions for big festivals and ticketed occasions?”
Shipman directed his considerations totally on the financial influence of the pageant – which a 2014 report by The Analysis Middle on the Nashville Space Chamber of Commerce cited by Atlanta Enterprise Chronicle estimated Music Midtown’s whole financial influence to be almost $50 million and an financial influence particular to the Atlanta space of $20 million yearly. “We all know individuals journey right here from elsewhere and so they don’t simply come to the pageant,” he mentioned. “They arrive a day early, they keep a day late, they keep at inns and do different issues that create financial exercise. So definitely, it’s tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.”
Shipman continued: “If pageant house owners don’t really feel like they’ll safely conduct enterprise in Atlanta, Shipman fears they’ll take their occasions to neighboring states. “We’re all the time competing with different cities not just for music, however extra broadly for financial growth.”