Fox 13 News<\/a> reported that the festival will now be held at the Coachman Park in Clearwater, Florida, less than 20 miles from St. Pete.<\/p>\nAside from the headliners, other artists scheduled to perform include Shaboozey, Dasha, Randy Houser, Max McNown, Gretchen Wilson, and many more.<\/p>\n
Environmental Concerns<\/p>\n
The reason for the switch is that several wildlife groups, including the Audubon Society, protested the festival as it overlapped with the sea turtle and shorebird nesting season. The city officials informed the festival organizers that the event couldn\u2019t happen at the beach due to environmental concerns.<\/p>\n
Reports also suggest the organizers started selling non-refundable tickets even before securing a permit for the event or backup venue, violating local regulations. \u00a0<\/p>\n
TradeWinds Resort released the following statement, especially for festivalgoers who already secured their tickets: \u201cTradeWinds worked closely alongside Country Thunder, the city, environmental agencies, and our community partners to satisfy permitting requirements and support a safe, successful event. Although the venue has changed, we remain proud to be part of bringing this event to the region and look forward to welcoming fans to TradeWinds and St. Pete-Clearwater.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
The resort is reportedly ready to offer transportation options to the new venue for attendees who booked rooms at their establishment.<\/p>\n
The New Venue: Coachman Park<\/p>\n
A Clearwater staff member confirmed that the organizers of Country Thunder Florida had already applied for a permit to have the event at the Coachman Park, a waterfront venue used to host large events. <\/p>\n
Clearwater City Manager Jennifer Poirrier said in a statement, \u201cWe are excited to introduce country music fans to beautiful waterfront Coachman Park and to be the new location for Country Thunder. There’s a lot that goes into expediting event preparations and moving a festival 30 days before it is scheduled, and we have been working around the clock with Country Thunder officials to ensure we deliver a great festival experience for ticket holders and the artists. I’m excited to put on my boots and watch the sunset while listening to some great Country music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ticket holders who prefer a refund due to the venue change can request one through their original point of purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just weeks before thousands of country music lovers were set to party and frolic at St. Pete Beach,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[43303,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-232758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-kane-brown","9":"tag-st-pete","10":"tag-st-pete-headlines","11":"tag-st-pete-news","12":"tag-st-petersburg","13":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","14":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}