The surprising announcement of the cancellation of the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta scheduled for September should prompt the Georgia legislature to address the reason for the cancellation as soon as possible during their next session starting in January.
A ruling this summer in a lawsuit concerning the current Georgia gun carry law and public property has festival promoters concerned about potential lawsuits if they try to ban guns from their events.
The lawsuit challenged the right of the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to ban guns since the Gardens are in Piedmont Park. The ruling allowed the Gardens to continue banning guns because of their long-term lease but did not address the issue of “temporary” events in public spaces such as music festivals, which in Atlanta are typically held in public parks (Piedmont, Central, Centennial, Candler, etc.).
The organizers of Music Midtown in Piedmont Park did not want to risk a lawsuit. They also expressed concern that artists would refuse to play at the festival if a weapons ban could not be enforced.
My hope and expectation is that the legislature will amend the gun carry law to allow bans for these type of “temporary” events, especially events with restricted access (I’m not even sure how a free event with no barriers could enforce a weapons ban). Someone with a personal firearm strolling through Piedmont Park is quite different from someone with a firearm at a music fest crammed with 20,000 people.
If the law is not amended I anticipate that all future festivals will either avoid public parks or just not take place, unless some festival promoter wants to challenge the law by banning guns and fighting a lawsuit.