Atlanta's Midtown Music Festival Cancelled Because City & Organizers Cannot Prohibit Guns

Organizers of the annual Midtown Music Festival at Atlanta's Piedmont Park have cancelled this year's event which was scheduled to take place in September because they are not permitted to prohibit concert goers from carrying firearms to the event. Georgia Republicans passed a law in 2014 expanding gun rights on both private property and publicly owned land. The law was further clarified through a Georgia Supreme Court ruling in 2019:

The festival, launched in 1996 by Atlanta-based music promoters Alex Cooley, Peter Conlon and Alex Hoffman, had long barred attendees from bringing guns into the event. In general, most major companies will not host a festival in a location that permits gun owners to carry their weapons into an event, with an exception sometimes made for law enforcement. Some artist riders actually have specific language saying that artist will not perform in cities or states where gun laws grant attendees the right to bring weapons inside of a concert venue.

While the 2019 ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court made it more difficult for private companies to deny licensed and armed citizens access to events on publicly owned land, it did not give the city of Atlanta the authority to enforce this decision or force the festival to allow guns into the event. Instead the law created a pathway for gun carrying individuals, who had also purchased tickets to the festival, to successfully sue event organizers if they were denied entry to an event taking place on public property.  

Additionally local authorities are typically involved in security for large scale events and likely would not have been able to enforce an illegal gun ban, so the festival would have had little to no backup to keep firearms out. 

Under the circumstances, I don't blame the organizers one bit for cancelling the festival. Such conditions would carry tremendous legal liability for both them and the City of Atlanta as the likelihood of a Las Vegas like mass shooting would be quite probable. Somehow I doubt the City of Atlanta and the Midtown Music Festival organizers have $800 million to compensate victims families as MGM Resorts International did. 

Such sheer stupidity makes me glad I no longer live in Atlanta.