Ro James at Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk

Seaside & Martin Luther King Jr concert series cancelled for 2017, being sued by AmEx

Coney Island
Coney Island Boardwalk in 2016 (more by PSquared)

Last year, Coney Island’s Seaside Summer Concert Series returned after taking a couple years off. Unfortunately, it’s cancelled for 2017 too, as is the related Martin Luther King Jr Concert Series at Wingate Field. A Facebook post reads:

After over thirty years of free concerts in the summer, the Seaside Summer Concert Series and the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series will not be presenting any shows in the 2017 season.

We wish to thank our many corporate and product sponsors who have generously funded these concert series over the years, many of them from the beginning.

Thank you to the City and State elected officials for their support.

Thank you to the bands who have performed, the crews that put it all together and to all of the volunteers. And a special thank you to the hundreds of thousands of audience members that have attended and enjoyed these wonderful shows.

The series are not only cancelled but also facing some legal trouble too. NY Daily News reports that American Express is suing both the Seaside Summer Concert Series and the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series for over $36,000 in credit cart debt. The credit card company says show organizer Debra Garcia failed to pay bills. Garcia has not commented, but former Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz (who started the series in 1979) said, “I know they’d faced challenges in the last few years. Raising money was always a difficult chore. This comes as a surprise to me.”

The Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk, which hosted the Seaside Summer Concert Series last year, has several other shows coming up including Echo & the Bunnymen and Violent Femmes tonight (7/12), Rancid/Dropkick Murphys/Bouncing Souls, Yes/Todd Rundgren/Carl Palmer, and Mary J Blige.