PHOENIX — Country music fans faced the extreme heat outside Chase Field Wednesday and Thursday to see Morgan Wallen. But some say they didn't get relief from the heat once they got inside the venue.
After Wallen's show Wednesday night, social media was filled with complaints from fans who were disappointed with the venue. Many said the performances were great, but the heat was unbearable, and stated some concessions were out of water. Some fans left early, unable to bear the heat despite the roof being closed.
“It wasn’t something that I would expect from, you know, a big show like this," said Cheyenne Booras of Scottsdale. "We were disappointed.”
Cheyenne Booras is a big fan of Morgan Wallen and decided to take her six-year-old son with her Wednesday for his first-ever concert.
She said she felt the cool air when she walked into the closed-roof stadium but that changed once the venue filled up.
“It never fully cooled off throughout the entire night," Booras said. "They had wheelchairs ready to wheel people out. And they did.”
The heat caused Booras and her son to leave the show early. She was feeling light-headed.
"If it's not safe, it's not safe, you know? To put people in that type of danger," Booras said.
Matthew Allison was there too.
“Dripping sweat," Allison said. "Your shirt was wet, everything was wet. People there were using pizza boxes or nacho containers, everybody was fanning everybody trying to cool down when we got there.”
Allison is a regular concertgoer and frequents Chase Field. He said Wednesday night's experience was unprecedented.
“The experience in the facility was not good," Allison said.
A Diamondbacks spokesperson released the following statement in response to concerns raised about the conditions inside the venue:
“In preparation of the record temperatures, we began running air conditioning throughout the facility at 7 a.m. before Wednesday night’s concert and will run it at its highest output in preparation for tonight’s concert. Unfortunately, due to extreme outside temperatures and a sold-out crowd of over 50,000 concert fans, we expected it to be warmer than usual inside of Chase Field. The heat entered the building through ingress and the opening of doors in the middle of the afternoon. The temperatures will not affect the show times or durations of the artists’ acts.”
“I would hope that they would want to announce that whatever did happen, why it was that way, what they're going to do to solve that problem in the future and ensure that people that are spending hundreds to thousands of dollars are not in that kind of situation," Allison said.
HEAT BEAT
Here are several videos about Arizona's extreme heat and how you can stay safe during the state's summer months.