This act authorizes the FAA to establish temporary flight restrictions over outdoor concerts or music festivals expecting 30,000 or more attendees daily for safety and air traffic control purposes.
Raul Ruiz
Representative
CA-25
The Protecting Outdoor Concerts Act of 2025 directs the FAA to establish new rules for temporarily restricting aircraft and drone access over large outdoor concerts or music festivals expecting 30,000 or more attendees daily. These restrictions can be implemented if deemed necessary for public safety, air traffic management, or preventing dangerous overcrowding. The FAA must align these new concert restrictions with existing regulations for major air shows and sporting events.
FAA Must Ban Flights Over Huge Music Festivals: New Rules Target Events Drawing 30,000+ Daily
The new “Protecting Outdoor Concerts Act of 2025” is straightforward: it tells the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to create a new set of rules specifically for massive outdoor concerts and music festivals. Within one year, the FAA must be ready to issue temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) that ban both regular planes and drones from the airspace above these events. This authority only kicks in for festivals expecting at least 30,000 attendees each day, and the restriction can only be put in place if the FAA decides it’s necessary for public safety, managing air traffic, or preventing dangerous overcrowding (SEC. 2).
Why Your Festival Airspace Might Get Shut Down
Think of this as standardizing the security perimeter for the biggest parties of the year. Currently, the FAA regularly issues TFRs for major sporting events like the Super Bowl or presidential visits, but big music festivals often fall into a regulatory gray area. This bill fixes that by requiring the FAA to treat these 30,000+ person concerts similar to how they handle air shows under existing rules (14 CFR 91.145). The goal is simple: keep the skies clear of unauthorized aircraft—whether it’s a small plane trying to get a peek or a drone carrying something dangerous—which significantly boosts the safety profile for the hundreds of thousands of people on the ground.
The Drone and Pilot Dilemma
For pilots and drone operators, this means a new, predictable set of no-fly zones will pop up on the calendar. If you’re a commercial drone operator who usually gets paid to shoot aerial footage of these events, you’ll need to watch the FAA notices closely. The bill mandates that the restricted zones for drones must follow the same rules the FAA uses for other drone bans (49 U.S.C. 44812). Essentially, if you live near where a major festival is held—think Coachella or Bonnaroo—you can expect your local airspace to be locked down for a few days each year. While it’s a win for safety, it’s a temporary headache for anyone who uses that airspace for work or recreation.
The 30,000-Person Catch
It’s important to note the attendance threshold. This new rule specifically targets the mega-events. If you run a smaller, regional festival that draws 15,000 people a day, the FAA can’t use this specific authority to issue a TFR. This creates a clear regulatory line: the bigger the crowd, the higher the security protocol. The challenge here is the discretion given to the FAA. The agency gets to decide when a restriction is “necessary” to prevent “dangerous overcrowding.” If those terms aren’t clearly defined in the upcoming FAA rules, it could lead to flight restrictions being applied inconsistently, potentially impacting event organizers and local air traffic based on subjective judgment rather than clear, measurable criteria.