Faster Horses Country Music Festival slated for July is still going to happen, according to Live Nation email

By Jerilyn Jordan

May 12, 2020 at 1:38 pm

Audio By Carbonatix

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Mike Ferdinande

Faster Horses 2016.

It's full steam ahead for Michigan's Faster Horses Country Music Festival.

According to an email exchange between a concerned Faster Horses fan and Live Nation acquired by MLive, the country music festival will announce its decision to either pull the plug on this year's event, which attracts upwards of 40,000 festival-goers, or move forward with the festival as planned as late as 14 days before the event is scheduled to take place. This year's Faster Horses is scheduled for July 17-19 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, and was set to include headliners Jason Aldean, Luke Combs, and Thomas Rhett.

While other major Michigan music festival mainstays have either postponed or canceled their 2020 events due to coronavirus concerns — Detroit's Movement festival tentatively moved its annual celebration of electronic music from Memorial Day weekend to mid-September and Electric Forest has pushed its late-June event to 2021 — Live Nation told Lansing's Kyle Shaffer that “Faster Horses 2020 is currently proceeding as planned.”

The email went on to say that organizers “are excited to welcome everyone to the event in July,” and urged Shaffer to check for festival updates via Faster Horses' social media pages.

Shaffer, who had rented an RV with his wife for the weekend-long camp-out festival, reached out to Live Nation so that he had an informed decision as to whether he should cancel the rental or risk eating the deposit. The exchange did little to ease his concerns.

Per the email, organizers said that Shaffer should reach out to Live Nation again closer to the event, specifically “within 14 days of the festival” to learn as to whether refunds will be made available. The decision will be “based on the current situation.”

Last week, Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino said they would experiment with “crowdless” and reduced-capacity concerts this summer by testing broadcasted and drive-in format shows in countries that were not hit as hard by the coronavirus as the U.S.

But one health expert anticipates concerts, sporting events, and other large gatherings will be put on hold until late 2021 “at the earliest.”

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