Anti-Obama country concert in Charlotte is canceled

Here’s a second example of empty chairs throwing off planned conservative convention festivities this week.

A planned anti-President Obama concert, “Rock the Red,� had been scheduled as counter-programming to the Democratic National Convention next week. Country artists including Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels and Lee Brice were booked at the 11,000-seat Bojangles Coliseum for a show organized by Jason Lambert, a North Carolina Republican consultant. Though not an official Republican event, the set was planned as a conservative riposte to the DNC festivities.

But the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which operates the Coliseum, pulled the plug on the event Thursday. Kimberly Meesters, the director of marketing for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, told Talking Points Memo that organizers “didn’t meet their financial obligations by the deadline we require,� which appears to be shorthand for very low ticket sales.

In a post on their Facebook site, organizers for Rock the Red stated “Bojangles claims the change was due to low ticket sales on Ticketmaster. However, it was nearly impossible to find the event on Ticketmaster for ticket purchasers, and we received no promotional help as promised, contractually.�

The group says it’s scrambling to find an alternate location for the concert, and is giving refunds for the event. But who is the real villain in all of this, according to Rock the Red? “We REFUSE to be bullied by the liberal city of Charlotte and their counterparts,� organizers wrote in their post.

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