Country-music star Hunter Hayes was scheduled to perform here last November, but he cancelled after Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency as the grand jury was nearing its decision regarding former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
While possible unrest in Ferguson and throughout the region was a cause for the cancellation, not every negative event in the St. Louis area can be blamed on Ferguson.
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Last spring, many city officials pushed to allow ICM Partners of Los Angeles to stage major concerts in downtown St. Louis during this year’s Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. While some local musicians and business owners were vehemently opposed to exclusivity clauses and other aspects, a majority of the city’s board of aldermen passed the deal.
Then, last week, it was announced that the Memorial Day concert would not take place and that the Labor Day concert was in jeopardy. Vintage Vinyl co-owner Tom “Papa” Ray said the Michael Brown shooting and resulting unrest will haunt St. Louis for years. “I think we are facing a biblical period of seven years of struggle with these things. St. Louis is the Selma of the 21st century,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dozens of comments following the article connected the cancelled concert with protestors and the Ferguson aftermath.
But what if there were other reasons that the concert was cancelled? Jeff Rainford, Mayor Francis Slay’s outgoing chief of staff, said, “It’s a major undertaking to put together something like this.” He did not mention Ferguson as a possible cause.
Around the same time that crime and the city’s escalating murder rate have been linked with the concert setback, Police Chief Sam Dotson and other law-enforcement officials haven’t hesitated to link St. Louis’ spate of violent crimes with the events in Ferguson.
In other news, last November, after working for two years to lure the NCAA Final Four back to town, St. Louis learned that it had not been selected. St. Louis Sports Commission president Chris Roseman said, “We never had a question or concern about [Ferguson]. It never came into play.”
There probably is no way of determining whether the NCAA members who made the decision were impacted by Ferguson. But if the question was asked during a press conference and several articles led with the question of Ferguson’s role in the rejection, then perception might be considered reality.
St. Louis will certainly lose conventions and commerce. But not every “no thank you” can be blamed on Ferguson.
