Last month, an unexpected announcement was made that had every pop-punk fan and nostalgic millennial rushing to get tickets: The When We Were Young Festival.

In this Warped Tour-style lineup, over 60 of the biggest names in pop-punk will be sharing a stage at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds this October to perform their most iconic hits, with acts including My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Avril Lavigne and Bring Me the Horizon.

But some fans believe the festival is too good to be true, with others insisting that it’s all one big scam. These claims don’t come out of nowhere, though. These factors surrounding the festival have some fans skeptical on whether or not they can trust the event:

Logistics

Realistically, there was no way the original festival seemed possible. Originally, 60+ acts were given three stages and 12 hours to perform. Due to popularity, Live Nation has extended the festival to another two days. Extension aside, how would the original one-day event been possible?

The official schedule has not been released yet, but people have already started doing the math. Each artist would have around half an hour to perform, not including taking down and putting up sets.
TikTok user @samcahnruns posted a video about a potential documentary about the festival should it turn out to be a failure, similar to the Netflix documentary “Fyre.” “Fyre” is about Fyre Festival, the 2017 luxury music festival that turned out to be a scam.

Live Nation has acknowledged these concerns, saying that more time will be given to bigger names while smaller acts have shorter set times.

COVID-19 concerns

The festival was announced in the midst of increasing COVID-19 rates due to the Omicron variant. Despite this, there are no current guidelines in place for the festival to help mitigate the disease.
Some bands didn’t even know they were playing

Some bands implied that they didn’t realize they were playing at the festival until the lineup was publicly announced. All-American Rejects and Royal & The Serpent took to Twitter and Instagram to address this.

This lack of communication left fans questioning how much they can trust the festival if even the musicians didn’t know they were going to be performing. 
Live Nation

The organization that’s putting on the When We Were Young Festival are the same people that put together Astroworld, Travis Scott’s festival that left multiple people injured and 10 dead in November 2021. Some people speculate that this is Live Nation’s way of making money to pay off the multiple Astroworld lawsuits they are currently facing.

Ticket prices range from $245 for general admission to $500+ for VIP. Despite these high prices, the current refund policy for the festival is absolutely no refunds for any fans, even if the festival itself is canceled, which makes things even more suspicious.
Fans coming to their defense
On the opposite end of the spectrum, others are defending the festival, insisting that their favorite bands would not let them down. 
Despite the numerous concerns over the festival, the show was quick to sell out all three days. Live Nation has denied any scam accusations and claims that the festival’s safety measures are well planned.
Will the When We Were Young Festival be the next Fyre Festival? We’ll just have to wait and see.