Downtown residents concerned amid summer concert series announcement

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD)- Johnson Hagood Stadium has been the home of Citadel football for years, but this summer it will transform into a concert venue.

Earlier this month The Citadel announced a concert series at the stadium.

It’s brought a lot of excitement.

“We’re going to take advantage of it. We live right here and have the balcony, we can just watch the concert from up there,” Citadel student, Niven Barnes said. “With a big enough venue like this you can pull some big artists.”

However, others in the neighborhood are worried it could negatively impact them.

I’m told a lot of the people who live near the stadium are young families with small kids who have an early bedtime.

Families News 2 has spoken with say their biggest concern is the noise level and parking situation.

They also wish The Citadel asked for their input before making the decision.

Tuesday night, a meeting will take place to voice those concerns.

“This is the perfect night to address some of the things they’re concerned about, and with anything, communication is the key.” Senior Vice President of Operations at The Citadel, Cardon Crawford said.

Crawford says the concerts will mirror a Citadel home football game.

“The parking will be away from the neighborhoods, we’ll use what we call our city gym lot. We’ll use the lot across the street and coordinate all of that. We’ll have the appropriate police presence on hand.”

Crawford says each concert will end around 10:00 p.m. and the type of artists they plan to invite won’t cause much commotion.

“This isn’t Lollapalooza, this isn’t Lil Wayne, we’re not going to have all kinds of folks attending this right,” Crawford said.

He says during the meeting tonight he hopes they can reach a point where any concerned residents become excited.

The meeting is at the First Church of Christ on Moultrie and Sutherland.