Country music star Luke Combs and others approve of plans to bring the Route 91 Harvest festival back to Las Vegas
Fourteen months after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history broke out at the 2017 event, the promoter has announced plans to bring the Route 91 Harvest music festival back to Las Vegas.
Sources told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the revived festival would take place at a different venue, although still on the city’s Strip — the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, a 35-acre plot on the southwest corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard — in the fall. The tragic shooting, in which 58 people died and hundreds more injured, took place at another location, the Las Vegas Village, near the Mandalay Bay resort.
The news was met with mixed reviews. People who supported the idea tended to echo the thoughts of Grammy-nominated singer Luke Combs, who was standing on the side of the stage, watching Jason Aldean perform, when the shooting began. Combs is in favor of bringing back Route 91, which was not held in 2018.
“It could be the kind of show that can be a show of solidarity,” Combs told Taste of Country on Thursday. “You can’t let something like that dictate what you are going to do because that’s what those people want — they want people to remain in fear. I’m not going to be scared to live my life, so I think it’s a really good thing that it would go back.”
He sees the idea of another Route 91 as “a really awesome way to honor the victims and survivors.”
Combs said he has a close connection with the fans who were also there at the time.
“We have helped them heal, and they have helped us heal,” Combs said. “So I would be very welcoming of seeing that festival come back.”
Others felt similarly.
Hey @LiveNation I think I speak for a lot of survivors when I say we would all love to go back to Vegas and tonanother Route 91, but we would love if you moved it to the speedway away from tall buildings 🙏🏼💜
— Em💕 (@Countrymqueen) December 13, 2018
I was there in 2017 and hell yes I will be there in 2019 if this is true. Nobody can stop me from doing what I love! I even went to a Luke Combs concert 2 days after Route 91. I am ready!
— Nate-o-potato (@Nateboggs485) December 13, 2018
There’s been word that Route 91 is coming back in 2019 THANK GOD, I’ve missed it man
— kaylee holley (@kayholl_) December 13, 2018
Hell yes!! They are working to bring back the #Route91 Harvest festival to Vegas, in 2019!!! Never let fear win!!
— David Saw (@LAWomensHoops) December 14, 2018
But for some, the idea of it was still too much.
Is anyone as upset as me that there was a news article in the Las Vegas Review Journal today that they are planning a return to Route 91 Harvest Festival in fall of 2019. Or in the article posted by the Baltimore Post-Examiner from December 9, 2018
— Nancy (@Nancy56126433) December 13, 2018
I’m just not sure how I feel about this one. I don’t think I could bring myself to go to another #route91 https://t.co/4pFPwfI4xo
— Elaine (@Elaine_1878) December 13, 2018
Just last month, the U.S. Justice Department said it would give $17 million to survivors of the shooting in order to pay for counseling, legal assistance, rehabilitation and other costs to help in their recovery.
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