Pittsburgh’s mayor says Morgan Wallen had “no contact” with his office or city public safety officials when deciding to cancel his show in Pittsburgh on Saturday night over the threat of severe storms.
“There was no contact to Public Safety or my administration so however the artist and his team picked to not have the show, that was on them, there was no consulting for Public Safety or the City of Pittsburgh,” Corey O’Connor told Pittsburgh’s KDKA Radio. “If you’re going to say that you consulted … that’s one story, we, again, had no record of that from public safety director, all the way down.”
O’Connor also said he was told that officials at Acrisure Stadium, where Wallen was scheduled to perform, were not notified of the cancellation in advance.
Those comments run contrary to what Wallen claimed when he announced the show’s cancellation on Saturday around 1:00 p.m. local time — seven hours before the scheduled start time. “After talking with local officials and my team, there is no choice but to cancel tonight’s show due to severe adverse weather conditions expected throughout the rest of the day and night,” he wrote in a statement at the time. “Safety for my fans and crew is the highest priority. Refunds available at point of purchase.”
Wallen was heavily criticized for the decision, as the worst of the weather cleared the area by 3:00 p.m. local time. In a video responding to fans posted late Saturday night, he again said he made the decision to cancel after “consulting with local officials.”
“This morning, my team walked on my bus, told me that they had been consulting with local officials, and that I should cancel my show in Pittsburgh tonight. And I said, ‘Why?’ They said that there was going to be strong winds in the area. And I said, ‘OK.’ So that’s what I did, and that was the information I had in the moment, and I trusted my team,” Wallen said.
“I understand that that wind and whatever else hasn’t gotten to Pittsburgh yet. I know it has touched some of Pennsylvania, so my heart goes out to all those affected by it. But the truth of the matter is I have a large stage that, in those conditions, could become fatal to a lot of folks around it. So I did the best I could with the information I had in that moment,” he added. “I’ve been seeing a lot of nonsense about me that is simply not true, and I just wanted to clear the air. I think my true fans know that that’s not how I operate in general, but I had to say it.”
