Jason Aldean fans angry concert resumed after they were told to leave venue

Ray Carr said he spent more than $400 on two tickets and a parking pass to the Jason Aldean concert Saturday at the Xfinity Center and didn’t see one second of Aldean’s performance.

“That was just beyond infuriating for me,” Carr said.

Carr is one of several concertgoers who said they were told by police officers and Xfinity Center staff that Saturday’s Aldean concert was “canceled” due to severe weather, only to find out after they’d left the venue that the performance resumed at 10 p.m.

In Carr’s case, he said he tried to pull back into the Xfinity Center parking lot but event staff wouldn’t let him.

“I spent a good amount of money for my tickets and now they won’t even let me back in. They told me to leave. What’s going on with this?” Carr said. “The fact that they decided to go on [with the concert] and not let people who were told to leave come back in and attend the show was infuriating.”

The Xfinity Center tweeted at 8:12 p.m. it was evacuating the venue because of severe weather. Less than five miles away in Foxborough, the National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down around 8:17 p.m., several minutes after the Xfinity Center suspended the concert and issue a weather alert to its attendees. The NWS issued a tornado warning around 8:30 for central Plymouth County between Brockton and Plymouth, around 12 miles from the Xfinity Center in Bristol County.

Joe Barber said he and his wife left the venue after an Xfinity Center staffer wouldn’t allow him to go to his seats and said the show would be rescheduled.

“We were shocked to see that [Jason] Aldean went on at 10 p.m. How could this be? We were told by a worker there that the show was being rescheduled,” Barber said.

Samantha Black stayed for the Aldean performance but said “hundreds” of others left to go home before it was announced the concert would resume.

“It was just completely mishandled,” Black said. “These people spent their hard-earned money to see him play just to be told to go home. To find out he played after they left [must be] heartbreaking.”

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Boston 25 sent several concertgoer complaints to Live Nation, the Xfinity Center’s parent company. A Live Nation spokesperson said the company will respond to fans who contact the Xfinity Center to complain.

“The team takes all fan feedback very seriously, and may have already connected with these fans if they contacted the venue,” the Live Nation spokesperson said. “Weather events are dynamic situations, and we consult with meteorologists, experts, and local authorities to make decisions about how to respond to severe weather. Due to the forecast, we evacuated the outdoor amphitheater out of an abundance of caution. After the storm passed, fans reentered the venue and enjoyed a great show.”

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office said it had received one consumer complaint and it is under review.

“There was no consistent communication whatsoever,” Carr said. “We had some staff in the venue telling us to stay where [we were], but then you had another staff was telling us we had to leave, we had to evacuate…The fact that he was coming back on at 10, and they wouldn’t even let us back in the parking lot. This is just ludicrous. This is ridiculous.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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