Governors Ball Music Festival Evacuated As Severe Weather Hits

RANDALL'S ISLAND, NY — Concertgoers had to evacuate Randall's Island on Sunday night as severe weather cut New York City's Governors Ball music festival short. Organizers ordered attendees to evacuate the park at 9:35 p.m. as rain pounded the city on the event's third and final day.

Attendees reported chaotic scenes as massive crowds were forced to leave the island while headlining performances by The Strokes and SZA were canceled.

"So Governors Ball ended the way ‘Jurassic Park’ began. Real solid emergency evacuation plan there, @GovBallNYC," Randall P Savage III posted on Twitter, along with a video of a drenched crowd. "We could all tell how important our safety really was."

The threat of severe weather loomed throughout the day Sunday. Organizers postponed the festival's opening that day to 6:30 p.m., which meant shows by the pop artist Charli XCX and singer-songwriter Soccer Mommy were cut.

But the weather system that drenched Central Park with more than three quarters of an inch of rain ultimately forced organizers to send everyone home just about three hours later.

"After close consultation with NYC officials and law enforcement, it was deemed necessary to evacuate the site and cancel the Sunday evening of Gov Ball 2019 for the safety of our festival goers, artists, and crew," organizers wrote on the festival's website. "The safety of everyone always comes first."

The festival is offering refunds for attendees' Sunday tickets. But some concertgoers said the cancellation was not well executed.

"The frustration is NOT about the weather. It's about the planning," Instagram user Bizzy Bahdee wrote in a comment. "The forecast was ALWAYS predicting the showers as a higher probability later in the day. It would have been a better decision to push all the shows EARLY rather than to push it later. "

The third day of Governors Ball was canceled because of weather worries in 2016. Rough weather also forced evacuations on the first day of last year's Panorama Music Festival, also held on Randalls Island.