'When We Were Young' Festival Hit With Cancellation, Fans Extremely Upset

Millennials who spent their formative years hanging out at Hot Topic and listening to 'emo' bands and artists in the late aughts received the ultimate nostalgic gift earlier this year!

In January, the Las Vegas-based When We Were Young festival was announced, revealing a lineup chock full of megastars and beloved bands that seemed too good to be true; many social media users began speculating about the festival's legitimacy.

Live Nation, the organization at the helm of the When We Were Young festival, would soon put an end to the speculation and confirmed the festival would be taking place in the Fall of 2022!

According to a piece from VICE which set out to investigate whether the festival wasn't just a mythical example of misery business, a spokesperson for Live Nation told the publication, "Great artists take time and care to work with. Thankfully we have a lot of history with these artists and their teams trust our visions on this."

Some of those artists and bands include Avril Lavigne, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Dance Gavin Dance, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Lavigne and My Chemical Romance were both slated to perform on the festival's first day on Saturday, October 22nd, according to the festival's official website.

However, fans who were anticipating attending the first day of the festival may want to hold off on dyeing their hair black or coloring their fingernails in with a black Sharpie marker.

The festival announced earlier today that the scheduled performances for Saturday would not be going forward.

Read on to find out why festival organizers were forced to go forward with a decision that was "not made lightly."

Elated fans and festival attendees may have been thrilled by When We Were Young's lineup, but there had also been a great deal of speculation about the festival on social media.

The Blast covered some of the social media speculation, particularly the hesitation surrounding Live Nation's involvement with When We Were Young following the tragic events of Astroworld last year; a massive crowd surge would claim the lives of ten attendees and more than 300 fans would be injured.

According to our January report, Astroworld began trending on Twitter along with Live Nation and When We Were Young after fans expressed their hesitation about the organization's involvement with the highly-anticipated festival.

A Twitter user wrote, "y'all so ready to forget livenation was responsible for multiple fatalities at astroworld cuz they put together the screamo revivalist all star team festival."

The Blast also looked back on the large number of lawsuits that had been filed in response to the events of Astroworld.

Astroworld organizer Travis Scott, Live Nation, Apple, and Drake were all targets of more than 100 lawsuits.

A notable lawsuit for $750 million had been filed by 125 Astroworld attendees in November of last year. The attendees were represented by Tony Buzbee, an attorney notably associated with Houston Texans' quarterback Deshaun Watson. Buzbee had been representing Watson in multiple sexual misconduct massage cases against him, since March of 2021, according to TMZ per our report.

Earlier today, an announcement sharing all performances scheduled to take place on Saturday, October 22nd, would be canceled, was posted on the festival's social media accounts and its official website.

The announcement reads, "When We Were Young festival organizers have spent the last several days proactively preparing the festival grounds for a windy Saturday. The National Weather Service has now upgraded their Saturday forecast to a High Wind Warning, including a dangerous 30-40 mph sustained winds with potential 60 mph gusts. Under advisement of the National Weather Service and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, we have no other choice than to cancel today's When We Were Young festival. The safety of our fans, artists, and staff will always be our top priority."

The announcement goes on to state "This was not a decision that was made lightly. We know many of you traveled to the area to have a spectacular day with your favorite bands and have been looking forward to this day for months. We were equally as excited and are devastated to have to share this news."

Information pertaining to ticket refunds is also included in the announcement.

The festival's announcement does conclude on a positive note!

"According to the National Weather Service, Sunday's weather looks sunny without any wind advisories. When We Were Young's additional dates including Sunday, October 23rd and Saturday, October 29th are moving forward accordingly," the announcement concludes.

Fans expressed their disappointment in the Twitter thread for the announcement.

One fan simply tweeted, "Bruh."

Another tweeted, "I knew it was too good to be true."

The festival is slated to take place from October 23rd until the 29th.