People leave cars, crowd stage at drive-in concert in Concord amid pandemic

CONCORD, N.C. — A concert in Concord was supposed to be a drive-in with people staying in their cars, but that didn’t happen.

Boosie’s concert at the Route 29 Pavilion was one of two performances Saturday night in Concord.

Videos posted to the artist’s Instagram account have some questioning why the concert wasn’t better enforced during a pandemic.

Channel 9′s Elsa Gillis spoke with the concert’s executive producer, John Clifton, on Monday, who said for the most part, everyone followed the rules and what was captured on video happened toward the end of the night.

He said overall, it was a good night without incidents -- the off-duty sheriff’s deputies provided security and helped enforce social distancing.

Clifton said what is shown in the video was during the encore. Boosie came back on stage, people got excited and started to get out of their cars.

“These kids were excited, you have to remember, this COVID situation has their mind set that it’s always negative,” he said.

ALSO READ: Smash Mouth performs at Sturgis to packed crowd

In other pictures posted to Boosie’s Instagram with people standing at the base of the stage, many are wearing masks while others are not.

Cabarrus County Sheriff Van Shaw echoed Clifton. He said the videos and photos on social media only show a sliver of what overall was a safe, socially distant event.

“That was a very small portion of a substantial, longer event that went off without any incident,” Shaw said.

According to the sheriff, at the end of the show, someone encouraged the crowd to come to the front of the stage.

He says deputies are looking into who said that.

“We’ve contacted the DA’s office. We’re investigating if it would be warranted to issue a citation for violation of the governors order or not,” he said.

The sheriff said law enforcement on scene chose not to get involved in that moment because they had other security duties and decided it might create more of a problem with potential confrontations between law enforcement and concertgoers.

There was also a drive-in Avett Brothers concert at the Speedway on Saturday, but people who were there said they didn’t see any problems with social distancing or masks.