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Italian authorities cancelled July concerts by Ye and Travis Scott in Reggio Emilia, citing public-order risks and Jewish-community objections to Ye’s appearance.
Italy has cancelled both Pulse of Gaia headline slots. Ye and Travis Scott, who were scheduled to perform on back-to-back nights in July at the RCF Arena in Reggio Emilia, will not appear after the local prefect ordered the shows blocked Saturday over public-order and security concerns.
NBC News carried the wire. The network’s syndicated Reuters report on Italian prefect Salvatore Angieri’s cancellation order and the protest-risk framing reports that prefect Salvatore Angieri cited public order, security, and the high probability of organized protests as the reasons behind the ban.
The two shows were the festival’s pair of headliners. Scott was set to top the bill on July 17 with Ye headlining the following night, both at the 103,000-seat RCF Arena in northern Italy.
The cancellation request came from two groups. CBC’s writeup of the CODACONS and Jewish-community requests that prompted the prefect’s order reports that Italian consumer advocacy group CODACONS and the Jewish communities of Modena and Reggio Emilia both formally asked authorities to block the shows, with specific concerns about Ye.
Ye’s recent European track record made the case. The rapper, formerly known as Kanye West, has faced a string of European cancellations this summer following antisemitic statements that have included praising Adolf Hitler and sharing Nazi imagery.
The UK barred him in April. Britain denied Ye entry on the grounds that his presence “would not be conducive to the public good,” with subsequent cancellations covering shows in Marseille, Poland, and Switzerland.
Scott’s history is its own concern. NYT’s brief on the Reggio Emilia prefecture’s safety-and-public-order statement notes that Scott has faced ongoing scrutiny over crowd control since the 2021 Astroworld festival in Houston, where 10 people were killed and hundreds injured during a crowd crush at his headline performance.
The 24-hour window mattered. Italian officials told reporters the logistical concern of managing two massive shows back-to-back at a 103,000-capacity venue compounded the safety calculus alongside the protest-risk framing.
Ye’s tour continues in friendlier markets. The artist was scheduled to play a concert in Istanbul later Saturday and is set to perform in the Netherlands next month after the Dutch migration minister confirmed there were no legal grounds to bar his entry.
The bipolar-disorder framing remains his defense. Ye has previously apologized for the antisemitic statements and attributed his behavior to untreated bipolar disorder, with the apology landing in some markets and not in others.
No comment has come from the principals. Neither Ye, Scott, nor the Pulse of Gaia Festival organizers have publicly responded to the Italian cancellation as of Saturday evening.
The festival’s broader lineup status is now in question. With the two headline acts gone and the public-order infrastructure built around their appearances now obsolete, the organizers face a programming hole the size of the entire weekend.
For Italy, the precedent is its own statement. The country has now joined the UK, France-by-postponement, Poland, and Switzerland in declining to host Ye, with the consumer-group-plus-Jewish-community coalition that triggered the order providing a procedural template other governments may study.
For the two rappers, the touring map is shrinking. Whatever the underlying motivations, the practical effect is a summer with fewer European dates than either originally booked.
