The Heaven and Hell Fest, which was scheduled to take place in México City on March 15th-16th has been canceled. The organizers have released the following statement:
“To all metal fans, metal bands, followers press and social media,
It is very sad to inform you that the Heaven and Hell Metal Fest 2014, that was planned to do on Texcoco Fair on march 15th and 16th 2014 was canceled by Estado De Mexico (State Government) after beeing supported by local government of Texcoco.
The reasons of this determinant cancellation by the Estate Government which strangely spread immediately to the federal level, were for unknown fundamental matters that make clear that this decision goes beyond the reasons the State Government presented.
Still we thank all the state and municipal governments who expressed their total support and interest to make this festival in their own entities.
With sadness and disappointment we realize that having relationships and interests at the highest levels has more relevance than generating opportunities for emergent projects and building healthy competition whose sole purpose is to bring quality international shows to our country.
We greatly appreciate the full support of all who were always with us and sent us words of encouragement, metal fans, groups, agencies, media and sponsors
The Festival Production did make its best to get this festival come true, unfortunately we’ve been victims of strong political interests, that goes beyond cultural matters.
Reimbursement ticket information will be released as son as possible at the official festival website and Superboletos.com
Finally, Heaven and Hell Metal Fest 2014 will not take place on March 15th and 16th… However we´re looking to reschedule bands and dates and as soon as we can and we will announce details as soon as we know them.
It doesn’t matter how much intolerance exist, the metal will not be silenced. We stand with the support of the entire metal community because Heaven and Hell Metal Fest 2014 is for all.”
14 Responses
Ok, so WHY WAS IT CANCELLED.
Bill,
It all depends on what source you read because there are many mixed messages being cited as the reason for cancellation.
The official press release above seems to imply that it was vetoed by the government, but no further explanation for why, except possibly political and financial interests.
However, the Huffington Post is reporting that is was due to safety concerns. It states, “The Mexico state government says the March 15th-16th Hell and Heaven Metal Fest concert planned for a fairground just east of Mexico City did not have adequate safety plans, posing a risk to concert-goers. It cited a lack of fire safety and evacuation plans, and inadequate planning for fireworks.”
But, the article also printed that it could be political and discriminatory against the heavy metal community writing, “The town of Texcoco is governed by the leftist Citizens’ Movement party and still supports the Metal Fest. Town spokesman Francisco Vazquez said he believes the state government, which is in the hands of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, may have cancelled the concert for political reasons. ‘I can’t rule that out,’ said Vazquez. ‘This is discrimination against Texcoco.’ But lingering suspicion of heavy metal in socially conservative Mexico may have played a role. Texcoco market vendor Juan Portugues told the Milenio television network that local residents were leery of the festival. ‘We think that this event, this metal event, will be attended by a certain type of people, gangs will come.’ Juan Carlos Guerrero, the spokesman for the concert organizers, said ‘I don’t know if this is discrimination against the metal community, I couldn’t prove that’s the case, but there are some things that make you wonder, and one is that massive grupero (another northern Mexico genre) concerts have been held in Texcoco, with as many as 200,000 people.” Another of the concert’s organizers, Javier Castaneda, vowed the show would go on. ‘This is not a question of discrimination against heavy metal, it is more about political and financial interests,’ said Castaneda.
Dana from EddieTrunk.com 🙂
Bring it to jersey!!
How’d you like to book air/hotels and not get your money back? This thing can’t happen in Jersey, the unions eat these things alive. Band crews can’t even touch the cases off the trucks sometimes. This is why Mexico and South America get big ones.
Show cancelled because Mexico was afraid of Illegal Immigration from the US to see the show. LOL
Go figure…guess Metal is not part of NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement).