Downtown's Grand Park will not see the return of the widely-criticized, Budweiser-sponsored music festival Made in America on Labor Day weekend this year. Organized by Jay Z and put on by mega-promoter Live Nation, the festival rankled many local residents with lots of street closures and didn't really connect with fans (tickets were discounted before the event to try and bolster sluggish sales), so it's not a huge shocker that it's not coming back this summer, the LA Times reports.
The two-day festival took over all of Grand Park, across from City Hall, and led to days of street closures and, during the festival, the shutdown of a Metro stop. It was also guarded over by 250 LAPD officers. But for all that trouble, it didn't really make the city a ton of money. A report by the Times showed that the event generated $792,000 in revenue, but "racked up around $761,000 in city costs, much of it from police patrols, street closures and trash pickup," for a grand total of $31,000.
The festival has always been held in Philadelphia, but last year it had a separate outpost in Los Angeles. This year, that outpost will reportedly/possibly be held on New York City's Liberty Island instead. But Jay Z still loves LA more than NYC—he, Beyoncé, and Blue Ivy are renting a $150k-a-month mansion in Beverly Hills.
· Made in America won't be returning to Los Angeles [LAT]
· Your Complete Guide to Getting In and Around DTLA's Made in America Festival This Weekend [Curbed LA]
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