Maybe it was the right decision to cancel after all…
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding Morgan Wallen‘s cancelled concert this past Saturday at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The superstar was in town for what was supposed to be a two-night run at the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but after performing the first night, Morgan announced a few hours before the second show on Saturday that the concert was being canceled due to anticipated severe weather:
“After talking with local officials and my team, there is no choice but to cancel tonight’s show due to severe adverse weather conditions expected throughout the rest of the day and night. Safety for my fans and crew is the highest priority. Refunds available at point of purchase.”
Well the projected storms never really materialized, and any severe weather had already cleared the area by 4:30 PM, before the concert was set to start at 5:30 PM.
Fans quickly began to take to social media to voice their displeasure with the cancelation, posting pictures from the parking lot showing clear skies and questioning whether it was really the weather that led Morgan to pull the plug.
Things only got worse when the Mayor of Pittsburgh, Corey O’Connor, spoke to KDKA Radio and told them that at no point did Morgan Wallen or his team reach out to the Public Safety division of the city. The Mayor says his administration was never contacted either:
“There was no contact to Public Safety or my administration so however the artist and his team picked to not have the show, that was on them, there was no consulting for Public Safety or the City of Pittsburgh. If you’re going to say that you consulted… that’s one story. We, again, had no record of that from public safety director, all the way down.”
But even though the severe weather never made it to Pittsburgh, just an hour away another event was impacted by storms that ended up sending at least 5 people to the hospital.
Morgantown, West Virginia, which is an hour south of the Steel City, was hosting the NCAA baseball tournament on Saturday when strong winds passed through an area near Kendrick Family Ballpark, sending at least one person flying while trying to hold down a tent that was carried off by the storms.
Video shows the large tent being picked up and blown down a hill near the stadium, and officials say at least 5 people were hospitalized by the incident. And according to CBS Pittsburgh, thousands were left without power in the Pittsburgh area after strong storms blew through on Saturday afternoon.
It’s all important context for those who are disappointed by the cancelation of the Morgan Wallen concert. Even if the storm had blown through before the concert, winds like that could easily damage the stage and make it unsafe for Morgan, his band and crew, and fans at the concert. Chances are that if winds like that had hit the stadium, the show still would have had to have been canceled because his team and officials wouldn’t have time to ensure that the stage was still safe. (Remember a few years ago when a stage collapsed during a Sugarland concert at the Indiana State Fair and killed seven people? That’s simply not a risk you take with an outdoor concert).
And there’s also the risk to fans who are in the parking lots and tailgating for the show, as proven by the injuries at the baseball game in Morgantown just an hour away. There are massive liability concerns with hosting an event like that knowing that severe weather is possible, and there are a lot of voices involved in the decision to cancel – and it’s always better to be safe than sorry and risk getting somebody hurt.
It shows that Morgan was really in a no-win situation when making the decision: If he pulled the plug too early and the severe weather never materialized, fans would be upset that he canceled. But if he waited and a storm did roll through, even before the show was set to begin, he likely would have had to pull the plug anyway because of potential damage to the stage, and it would have been much closer to show time and upset fans even more.
I think it was ultimately the right decision to cancel the show, given the severe weather that hit so close to where he was scheduled to perform. Outdoor concerts always pose risks of being impacted by weather, and the consequences of trying to press on despite the weather have been disastrous in the past.
I know it sucks to miss a concert, and lose money spent on travel, but the alternative could have been far, far worse.
