If you live in Inglewood, El Segundo or the surrounding communities, you probably heard – or felt – the Hard Summer music festival last weekend.
But noisy outdoor festivals should no longer be a concern for residents, since the city of Inglewood has pulled the plug on outdoor concerts at SoFi Stadium.
Specifically, the city will no longer permit stages in the American Airlines Plaza, which is the elevated area between the stadium and the YouTube Theater.
The ban comes after hundreds of residents from Inglewood and El Segundo called police to report the loud noise during the festival, which ran from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Aug. 3 and 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Aug. 4.
Several other people took to Reddit to say that they heard the festival over eight miles away, and KTLA even received emails from concerned viewers regarding the noise; one man who lives three miles from the venue said that the festival sounded like it was being played directly across from his house.
In a release, Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said that the range of the disturbance “perplexed” officials since multiple outdoor concerts had been held at American Airlines Plaza.
“It is important to clarify that the sound and vibration issues experienced over the weekend were related to certain bass frequencies,” Butts Jr. said. “These frequencies can be affected by stage position, reflection off buildings and atmospheric conditions including wind.”
Those frequencies are more prevalent in EDM and techno than they would be in pop music or even hip-hop, and the city and their partners eventually concluded that the elevated stage placement was “a major contributor to the issue.”
Going forward, Mayor Butts Jr. said that extra steps will be taken to make sure a situation like this doesn’t happen again.
“We will require even greater sound engineering with a more comprehensive plan when it comes to addressing sound and bass frequency management,” Butts Jr. said.