Route 91 Harvest Festival May Return to Las Vegas in 2019

After a shooter opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas last October, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds, festival organizers are now considering a return to the city in 2019.

"Route 91 Harvest here in Las Vegas is one of my kids," Chief Operating Officer of Country Nation Julie Matway said this week during XLIVE, a live events conference, according to trade publication Amplify. "I am looking forward to how and when we are going to bring that back. We are working hard on that. Hopefully we will get it online for 2019."

Officials from event promoter Live Nation confirmed that the company is planning to bring back the festival next year.

Should the festival return to Sin City, it would do so in a different location. The festival was previously held at the Las Vegas Village, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the event would move to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.

The 35-acre festival grounds, located on the southwest corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, had been considered a site for the festival since 2016 due to the event's growth after beginning in 2014.

Since the shooting, the Village has been cleared of all staging equipment, though no plans have been announced for the future of the space. All outdoor events since the tragedy have been held at the Festival Grounds.

After the shooting, several country stars spoke out about the tragedy, including Jason Aldean, who was on stage performing when the gunman began firing on the final day of the festival.

"It's still tough every day, and you think about it," he told CMT.com in April. "But you never think that's something you have to deal with, and when you do, you deal with it the best you can, try and recover and move forward."

The singer's wife, Brittany, was also present, and Aldean noted that the experience brought them closer together.

"Britt and I were there together, and so her and I lean on each other for that stuff. My mom, my dad, my sister, and people like that weren't there," he explained. "More than anything, we were already a pretty tight family, but I think it brought us closer in a lot of ways, too."

"Anytime something like that happens, you can always find a silver lining in it somewhere, and good things can come out of it. I think you have to find what that is."

In January, he told CMT.com that the birth of his son, Memphis, who was born in December 2017, helped him heal after the tragedy.

"Within a couple of months, I saw the worst thing you could possibly experience, and then I saw the best thing you could possibly experience with him being born," he explained. "It gave me something else to focus on and gave me a reason to look forward to the new year and getting the chance to get back out there and do what it is that I love to do.

Photo Credit: Getty / David Becker