Nashville Fireworks Show Delayed After Trespassers Spark Police Concern

Residents and tourists flooded the Nashville streets to watch the largest firework display in the country, only for the spectacular event to be delayed. It’s the largest crowd Music City has seen downtown Broadway since the 2019 NFL draft, all to celebrate the patriotic event. However, just before the fireworks show was about to start, it was quickly postponed after a few people were found standing on a building near the pedestrian bridge in an unauthorized area, forcing headlining performer, Brad Paisley, to “ad-lib” on stage until officials could kick off the show.

Nashville Scanner on Twitter gave live updates on what metro police officers were doing about the situation. “Nashville has 400k+ people downtown to watch the largest fireworks show in the country and right now it’s being delayed because a couple [of] applesauce brains snuck into the building to watch from the roof,” one Twitter user wrote. “Oh, and they are partially naked so I mean so college right,” they added.

“Three individuals just came out of the building on the 4th-floor patio, air 1 tracking them on the backside rooftop, also talking about getting K9 units to the building…perimeter being set up on the bottom floor,” Nashville Scanner wrote.

An investigation is now underway after police officers were still in the blast zone as the firework show began. “The safety of all personnel and the safety of the public is our department’s number one priority,” Joseph Pleasant, a spokesperson for the Nashville Fire Department said in a statement Monday morning according to WKRN. The miscommunication began with police officers hurrying to clear the area of the individuals that were in the unauthorized zone. Butch Spyridon, the president and CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation addressed the situation at a news conference on Monday.

“Fire Marshal teams spotted some individuals in the Bridge Building. I believe they were employees of somebody, I don’t know who they are, so they delayed the show,” Spyridon said. “They called PD. They got in, they cleared the building. The communication chain between fire and PD had a missing link that has been corrected. They’ve already improved that, but it was simply one side thought it was clear, and the other side didn’t get that message.”