Show goes on: Garth Brooks’ holds concert at sold-out Arrowhead Stadium amid COVID surge
They filed into Arrowhead Stadium by the thousands. Almost all of the people who arrived for Garth Brooks’ sold-out concert Saturday night showed up unmasked. Who knows how many were unvaccinated.
On Friday, Brooks wondered if holding his concert for which more than 74,500 tickets were sold — an Arrowhead concert record — was still the right thing to do. COVID-19 cases have increased. Hospitalizations are rising. Hospital capacity is dwindling. And some of the concert goers wondered the same thing right before the show was about to begin.
“I don’t think it was the right thing (to still have the concert)” said Emma Sperry, 22, who is from Kansas City, Kansas. “Even though we’re here, everything should’ve been shut down.”
Sperry was there with her friends Allan Miller and Travis McClellan. They were among the several who still decided to go to the concert amid their concerns with the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Over the past week, the Kansas City metropolitan area added 5,000 more cases. That’s more than 1,000 than the previous week.
Sperry, Miller and McClellan said they still went because they didn’t want to lose out on the money they paid for tickets. All three have been fully vaccinated so they weren’t as worried about the event.
All three, however, expressed frustration over the low vaccination rate — across the country and across the Kansas City area. On Friday, the White House announced that 50% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated.
“If everyone would just get vaccinated we wouldn’t have to go back to 2020,” Sperry said.
Before the concert, the health department operated a mobile vaccine clinic right outside the stadium from 3 p.m. until about 6:30 p.m.
It was a push to get more people in the metro area vaccinated. All three vaccines were available, Pfizer’s, Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine is a two-dose regimen. The J&J vaccine only requires one dose. But those who got vaccinated before the concert — whether it be the second dose or the J&J vaccine — wouldn’t have full immunity until after two weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s unclear how many vaccines were given before the Brooks show. A number would be released Monday, said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’ spokesperson Morgan Said.
Kevin Gadd, 49, who lives in Kansas City, decided to get the J&J vaccine at the mobile clinic. He had waited to get the vaccine because he didn’t want to do it, he said. He also is afraid of needles and this was his first shot in 20 years, he added. The rise in cases also worried him. And he doesn’t want to infect his parents.
Gadd thought the concert should still be held despite the ongoing pandemic which has killed 2,365 people in the metro since the pandemic began.
“If you don’t feel comfortable coming, don’t come,” Gadd said.
Erica Coll, 36, from Olathe received her first dose of the Moderna vaccine. She said she’s ready to get back to normal life.
She acknowledged that going to the concert was a risk, but she said she brought a mask to wear. She added that she wasn’t going to wear it at her seat, only if she went to the concession stand.
On Monday, during a University of Kansas Health System’s medical briefing, chief medical officer Steve Stites said he would personally use a mask at the concert — regardless of vaccination status and regardless that the concert was outdoors.
Kansas City passed a new mask mandate requiring masks to be worn indoors regardless of a person’s vaccination status. The mask mandate, however, doesn’t apply to outdoor spaces.
At the concert, hardly anyone wore a mask. Guests were required to wear masks in enclosed public areas of the stadium unless they were eating or drinking.The people who were seen wearing masks the entire time were stadium volunteers and security personnel.
Tuesday Young, 33, who is from Kansas City took a break from wearing her mask while she smoked a cigarette. She’s been fully vaccinated but still brought a mask to the concert and planned to wear it during the concert. She’s been a fan of Brooks ever since she could remember. She went to a concert of his in Kansas City when she was 5 years old. Even though she’s completely vaccinated, she hardly ever goes out. The concert had the most people she’s been around since the pandemic began.
She wanted to be as safe as she possibly could. For most of the week, she was nervous the concert would be canceled due to the pandemic. She thought still having the concert wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I think when it was planned, the virus wasn’t as bad,” Young said. “I think if they had planned it when the virus was bad, they wouldn’t have done it.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2021 at 11:43 PM.
