Buffalo Cops Close Down Legal Music Festival

For anyone who attended the Silent Exchange electronic music festival at The Yard on Saturday, I am sorry that you had to witness Buffalo’s Men in Blue in such a sorry state. As fifty young music fans stood around watching a DJ spin on stage, Buffalo Police filed onto private property and threatened the crowd to disband or pay the consequences. Despite the fact that the proper permits had been filed with City Hall, that would allow the music to go on until 10pm, Buffalo Police would not listen to reason, only resorting to ‘police state’ tactics as the young music fans looked on in bewilderment .

One of the reasons that The Yard was chosen for the event was that it is widely known that the bandshell at LaSalle Park is next to impossible to book unless you have an ‘in’ with The City. So that means that the only other alternative when it comes to holding a concert at a permanent outdoor music festival is The Yard. The Yard is not in a residential neighborhood. Nor is it in a commercial neighborhood. It’s located in an abandoned industrial area surrounded by nothing and no one. Maybe sometime in the future this might be inhabited by college students, but that’s just not the case at this point in time. So how do the police claim that there was a noise complaint, especially since the music could not be heard until you turned the corner of the building and actually saw the stage?

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