Kraftwerk Show Canceled Due to Buenos Aires’ Electronic Music Festival Ban

Earlier this year, Buenos Aires officials banned electronic music festivals after five people died at the Argentinian edition of Time Warp. Now, a Kraftwerk concert scheduled to take place in the city this month has been denied a permit, Clarín reports (via Resident Advisor and a Pitchfork translator). Promoters Move Concerts, who argue the alcohol-free, public event doesn’t qualify as a festival, say they’d sold 70 percent of tickets after receiving permission to open the sale in July. They will try to relocate the show elsewhere within the province, outside Buenos Aires.

The wording in the city’s ban precludes concerts using “synthesizers or samplers as their primary instrument,” though some electronic music events, such as Sónar Buenos Aires, will be allowed to go ahead, Clarín reports. “These are concerts: They aren’t dance parties or DJ events,” according to the Buenos Aires Ministry for Culture. 

Federico Arancibia, a founder of the Asociación Civil de Música Electrónica, maintained, “You can’t persecute and sanction an entire musical genre just because of one negligent entrepreneur,” referring to the Time Warp deaths. As Clarín points out, one Kraftwerk fan tweeted, “Cancel Kraftwerk because of what happened at Time Warp? No one told them that the only pill that Kraftwerk fans take in 2016 is Ibuprofen.”

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