to follow up on the cancellation of music midtown for everyone who doesnt live in georgia: its against georgia law to ban guns in public spaces (i.e., piedmont park). livenation, the promoter of music midtown, in general, prohibits firearms at its festivals and venues. this hasn't really been a huge problem at music midtown even though it contradicts georgia law. this is because, until recently, we had some semblance of common sense regarding guns in public (that being said, open and concealed carry has pretty much always been a thing here. like. ive had guns pulled on me by rednecks at my former grocery store job. its just a part of life). however, the current governer and human shit bag, brian kemp, recently signed into law a bill which states that permits are not required to purchase or carry guns in the state of georgia. this was all guns rights """activists""" needed to stage a formal protest against livenation and music midtown. apparently, music venues who contract with public on a long-term lease are permitted to ban firearms at festivals, but those on short-term leases, like livenation's music midtown, are not permitted to band firearms and are not permitted to erect metal detectors at the entrance to the venue. obviously, this is major threat to concertgoers--both in terms of potential gun violence, and also violence involving other metal weapons that cannot be confiscated due to the inability to erect metal detectors.
tldr; new georgia gun laws and gun rights "activists" who have never cared about music midtown before have made music midtown extremely dangerous to concertgoers. livenation was absolutely correct to cancel.
more from Niall's IG stories for this day - featuring a music fest at which he'll be playing this summer in Atlanta and saying he'll answer questions on Tuesdays on Spotify's countdown page for The Show
May 16th, 2023; 2:44 p.m. DST
can i just say how much i adore these videos where he talks "to" us❤️