Noise complaints were minimal compared to last year’s edition of HARD Summer after the festival adjusted stage and speaker placement.
Last year, HARD Summer faced backlash from residents in Inglewood and other South Bay communities like El Segundo who weren’t pleased with the noise levels that the festival brought along with it, leading to over 100 complaints. In response, the festival organizers said they would make modifications for this year’s edition, and it seems to have been a success. While some noise complaints still rolled in over the weekend, there was seemingly a drop in the number of calls.
Multiple local news outlets, including CBS and NBC, have reported that noise complaints substantially shrank due to the changes that were made to the venue. HARD Summer’s Pink Stage was repositioned to a new area on the North side of the venue, moving it away from SoFi Stadium’s American Airlines Plaza. Additional changes included new speaker placement to reduce and soften noise levels, as well as the festival changing its end-time to 10pm on both days.
“The event is going on right now, we are not a half mile from SoFi, you don’t hear any vibrations, you don’t hear any sound,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts said to NBC on Sunday. “We have people that live in the Renaissance they didn’t complain, my buddy Brian in Redondo Beach he heard it last year, says it’s entirely different. So I have to go with objective reality, objective reality says that maybe somebody is exaggerating.”
While the modifications that were made quelled the concerns and complaints of many, it didn’t stop some from taking to social media platforms like Facebook to share hotlines and continue to comment about the noise levels.
This past weekend saw HARD Summer draw tens of thousands to Hollywood Park at SoFi Stadium for its second edition at the venue. Featured artists who performed throughout the weekend included Feid, Dom Dolla, KAYTRANADA, Gesaffelstein, Sara Landry, I Hate Models, and Four Tet, among others.
The festival wasn’t the only draw for music lovers to the area over the past weekend, as Lady Gaga performed the last show of her four-night run across the street at KIA Forum on Saturday.