Why Canceling Michelada Fest Will Leave a ‘Gaping Hole’ in Chicago’s Summer Season: ‘Our Culture Is Being Targeted’

Los Alegres del Barranco was supposed to perform at Chicago’s Michelada Fest this summer — but after the U.S. government canceled the group’s visas when they displayed images of a cartel leader at a show in Guadalajara, Fernando Nieto and his team quickly pivoted to replace the Mexican band with Gabito Ballesteros.

A month later, on May 6, event organizers announced that the two-day festival — set to be headlined by Grupo Firme, Anitta and Luis R Conriquez — was canceled over artist visa “uncertainty” under the Trump administration, and a “rapidly changing political climate,” they said in a statement.

Nieto, co-founder of Michelada Fest (Big Indie produces the festival alongside Zamora Live and Viva tu Música), tells Billboard that the visa situation for regional Mexican artists happened “abruptly,” to the point that they had to cancel the entire event.

“It seemed at first that Los Alegres was an isolated event but we’ve seen enough over the last few weeks for us to have to make this difficult decision,” he explains. “I can’t comment on a specific artist or whether it’s a pending or revoked visa, but as a small business we needed to make the responsible decision not only for our company but also our consumers. We didn’t feel confident we could give them a complete event between now and July.”

Michelada Fest is perhaps the biggest event to date to cancel over visa issues and uncertainty under the Trump administration, which launched an aggressive crackdown on immigration on day one of the president’s second term in office. The Cinco de Mayo festival in Chicago’s La Villita neighborhood was canceled over fear of ICE raids. Billboard previously reported how Trump’s immigration policies could impact Latin music, with promoters seeing certain markets being impacted with low attendance.

Now, in a plot twist of sorts and adding to the uncertainty of it all, regional Mexican artists who sing or have sung narcocorridos are under the spotlight, with Mexican states cracking down on banning the style of music, and the U.S. government not only taking notice, but acting on it too. It’s a major blow to the genre, which has only grown significantly in popularity and exposure over the past few years.

“We had been taking everything day by day, a lot of our vendors were also asking what would happen if ICE showed up — that’s what we were focused on,” Nieto says. “Never did we think that it would go from our people being targeted to now our culture also being targeted. I did not see it going this way at all.”

Just last year, Miche Fest — which was launched by locals as a street festival — held its biggest edition to date, taking place for the first time in Chicago’s Oakwood Beach, with superstar headliners Kali Uchis, Junior H and Los Ángeles Azules. 

Below, Nieto reflects to Billboard about the team’s decision to cancel this year’s Michelada Fest, and discusses what comes next.

What was your thought process throughout all of this, which ultimately led to canceling Michelada Fest?

First and foremost, we want to treat consumers with respect. We’ve been doing this for eight years now, we started as a street festival and our fans have been there since day one. The last thing we want to do is put their money at risk. We felt the best thing we could do was to be transparent about what’s going on. Our consumer [base] works extremely hard for their dollars, and especially right now, we’re living in a time where everything is more expensive — not just on the events side, but the daily cost of living… That’s why we’re doing a 100% refund instead of saying your ticket will be good for next year.

What does not having a Michelada Fest this summer mean for Chicago’s Latin festival scene?

We’re leaving a major gaping hole in the Chicago summer season. We feature a bunch of small businesses, merch vendors, local food vendors, and we were about to announce a stage to highlight local Chicago artists — and that’s not taking into account the impact that we have financially when it comes to stimulating the economy through small businesses.

For a lot of our vendors — and I’m talking about the generator company, security company — we’re their biggest contract of the year. We have a $9 million dollar operating budget for our event. And unfortunately I had to make really difficult calls over the past few days to tell them the news, and now they’re trying to find another big [gig] for the year. There’re so many layers to the impact this festival has, from artists to small businesses and a cultural impact. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it was the responsible thing to do.

Michelada Fest is the biggest event to cancel because of the political climate …

We were the first major event to really make a statement — and I hope no one else has to deal with this, but a lot of visas are pending, tours are getting pushed back. There’s so much uncertainty.

What’s next for Michelada Fest?

We’re going to take the next few months to regroup and strategize, maintain the trust [with our base] and have a major comeback next year. Chicagoans know we’re a grassroots organization that started as a street festival by a bunch of South Siders. At the end of the day, they deserve this transparency. It only sets us up for a bigger year next year.