Chase Rice in Hot Water for Live Show in Tennessee
Country singer Chase Rice is under fire by his fans and country co-stars after video and photos started to surface of a live show he did this past Saturday night in Tennessee. The show took place in an old prison called the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. The venue was adhering to the CDC guidelines put in place for the state of Tennessee. Well, that was until the show actually started. That's when the guidelines left the venue. Concert goers, hungry for an actual live show, began to pile towards the front of the stage as Rice took the stage.
Reports from TMZ say the venue went above and beyond the guidelines that are in place for Tennessee. The venue can hold 10,000 people, but they limited their capacity to 4,000 people. They also claimed the total attendance of the Rice show was a mere 1,000 people. They told TMZ that everyone's temperature was checked, and they were given free hand sanitizer at the entrance.
Now, I will get on my soap box for a second. When I was lucky enough to work for a local casino here in Lake Charles, I was in charge of the entertainment. At this casino, we would have outdoor concerts by the pool. At these shows, I have seen 900 people, and I have seen 6500 people. Doing them for 11 years means I got pretty good at estimating how many people were at these shows.
I cannot tell you 100% how many people are in this venue, but I would almost bet the farm there are way more than 1,000 people in attendance at this show. I would speculate that they were close to that 4,000 capacity the venue put in place.
There are plenty of ways to argue this entire situation. You can mention that protests in places had way more than this or you can talk about other gatherings here and there. I am not here to mock them nor make one better than the other. What I am saying is that being a country music star or anyone of influence these days, means you have a responsibility to do the right thing.
Sometimes you might not agree with the right thing, but we all do things we don't want to do in our lives. This, Chase Rice, was not the right thing to do. Want to know what the right thing to do was? Ask Garth Brooks.