If you’re hoping Charlotte’s Lovin’ Life Music Fest will fail, then you’re doing it wrong

In some ways, this week seems like a bad time to try to get excited about a major music festival in Charlotte, given what the city is reeling from right now.

It seems like we shouldn’t be concentrating right now on Post Malone, Stevie Nicks and Noah Kahan, but rather on Thomas “Tommy” Weeks and Joshua Eyer and Sam Poloche and Alden Elliott — the four law enforcement officers killed in the tragic shootout that ensued as a U.S. Marshals task force tried to serve a warrant here in Charlotte — and on the four injured officers, and on all of their families.

The inaugural Lovin’ Life Music Fest will go on, however, and that being said I hope you’ll also consider this: As bad a time now might seem to try to get hyped up about the event, this is an even worse time to prematurely put it down.

Not that the festival’s naysayers and skeptics have only recently crawled out of the red clay. Over the past several months, all kinds of haters have turned up their noses at pretty much everything festival organizers have put forth. They’ve ridiculed the name for being lame. They’ve scoffed at each wave of artist announcements, and derided the quality and/or coherence of the final lineup. They’ve blasted everything from the ticket pricing (too high!) to the flow of information (too confusing!) to the location (too parking-lot-ish!).

It’s a trash event, they argue, put on by dunces, they say. The word “Fyre” gets mentioned a lot. They almost seem like they can’t wait for it to fail.

And let’s be honest: There’s a chance that the inaugural Lovin’ Life Music Fest could be a disaster. For any number of reasons.

There are, of course, terrible scenarios one could imagine that would unequivocally ruin the event, for everyone, that I won’t even mention because I don’t need to jinx this thing. Fortunately, those are extremely, extremely unlikely. Remote possibilities at best.

But then there are countless other scenarios of varying degrees of unfortunate-ness, too. A few of them (widespread waste-management problems, rampant restroom shortages, subpar sound) could ruin the event for many. Many of them (from wonky issues involving specific artists, isolated customer-service headaches, and all kinds of perceived disappointments related to all kinds of different aspects of the festival) could ruin the event for a few.

Basically, Lovin’ Life could fail a little bit. It could fail a fair amount. It could fail spectacularly. The question is, why would you just want to assume that failure is inevitable?

Even if you don’t like the name, or the lineup, or the ticket prices (and I mean, let’s be real, those are all at least subjective determinations), in my opinion, there are two very big reasons to be optimistic.

Number one is that the organizers have emphatically proven themselves, both as devotees to Charlotte and as producers of successful major music festivals.

As I detailed in a story earlier this year, Southern Entertainment partners Bob Durkin and Rob Pedlow made names for themselves in 1990s at the helm of Bar Management Group, which operated several nightlife hotspots of that era. And over the past decade, they’ve launched and grown both the Carolina Country Music Festival in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (where this year Morgan Wallen and Carrie Underwood will top the bill) and the Barefoot Country Music Fest in Wildwood, New Jersey (where Luke Bryan and Keith Urban are set to headline in 2024). In other words, it’s not like the only thing on their resume is a bar crawl or some fundraising concert at a country club.

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The second reason to be hopeful, meanwhile, involves something a bit more existential.

As wonderful as Charlotte is in so many ways, the city seems to be almost perpetually fighting for respect, endlessly running its finger over that chip in its shoulder to feel how big it is at any given moment. If it’s not trying to prove it’s better than Raleigh, it’s trying to compare itself in some way to Atlanta. If it’s not feeling embarrassed about the Carolina Panthers, it’s being disappointed by the Charlotte Hornets.

Then, on a much more serious and somber note, there’s this week’s tragedy — and not just any tragedy, but one of the darkest and deadliest days any law enforcement agency has been dealt in recent years.

It’s exactly why now, perhaps more than ever, we need something big and bold like this to go smoothly. To be something to cheer about.

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And, I mean, why wouldn’t you want to hope that Lovin’ Life is going to be a success? Not just a moderate success, but an enormous success? Not just for one year, but for many to come?

OK, so you don’t like Post Malone, or Stevie Nicks, or Noah Kahan. But objectively speaking, they’re all very big deals, and hey, if 2024’s fest is a success, who’s to say that next year Durkin and Pedlow won’t be able to attract additional A-list artists who combine to create an even bigger and better overall lineup? Then, if that happens on a consistent basis for a few years, who’s to say that this doesn’t become one of the most anticipated, most musically muscular fests in the Southeast?

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Believe me, I know: The organizers are in a tough spot. In a certain respect, they have little to gain and everything to lose.

Many of the people who attend will be evaluating everything throughout the weekend. Safety, first and foremost. Then all the other stuff. Ease of entry. Ease of navigation. Sight lines. Production quality. Sound quality. Concession prices. Stage layout. Crowd control. Restroom lines. Restroom cleanliness. Whether schedules are stuck to. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I’ll be carefully evaluating all of this myself, frankly — though in closing, I should point out:

As I consider safety, I’ll be thinking about how hard it has to be for all the law enforcement officers who’ll be out there protecting us while at the same time grieving.

As for all the other stuff? I’ll be reserving judgment on them until I actually experience the festival. But I’ll also be completely honest with you: Given the week Charlotte has had, I am perhaps this weekend going to be slightly more inclined than usual to put a little less emphasis on the negative — and a little more on the positive.

I hope you all do, too.

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