After a dispute between board members of Miami’s Bayfront Park threatened the fate of Rolling Loud, the Hip-Hop festival will go on as scheduled.
Tuesday morning [April 11, 2017], a unanimous vote was reached in favor of a use agreement for the festival, slated to draw something close to 40,000 festival-goers per day during its three-day run.
It was earlier this year that festival organizers, Dope Entertainment, confirmed that the festival, now in its third year, would be moving to Bayfront Park to accommodate the crowds that come along with headliners such as Kendrick Lamar, Migos, Future, and Lil Wayne to name a few.
However, last month the festival almost saw an end when Miami Commisioner and the chairman of Bayfront Park’s board, Frank Carollo, revealed that the park’s director, a newly-resigned Timothy Schmand, never brought Rolling Loud’s agreement of use to a vote before the board.
This sparked Tuesday morning’s session that Carollo cites as being pertinent due to the fact that the laws of the board state that any and all contracts be approved by the board.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, the city of Miami also faced the possibility of a $30 million lawsuit from Rolling Loud’s organizers considering the fact that almost 40,000 tickets had already been sold for the May 5-7 event.
It was Rolling Loud’s attorney Jeffrey Bass who warned that if the festival was cancelled, Rolling Loud would incur losses “well in excess of $30 million”, advising the Trust that they could not “impede the event at this time without significantly exposing itself to substantial financial liability.”
Tariq Cherif, co-founder of Rolling Loud, took to Periscope to reveal the board’s decision, proclaiming, “We won! They not shuttin’ nothing down.”
A proclamation signifying a weight lifted off the shoulders of all involved and certainly signifying a victory for Hip-Hop.
