Made in America will continue to emphasize security in the wake of the Parkway shooting

The concert and fireworks display at Philadelphia’s Wawa Welcome America July 4 celebration turned chaotic Monday night when two police officers were struck by bullets and people fled the scene in panic.

What impact will that have on security concerns during the Benjamin Franklin Parkway’s other giant summer gathering? In less than two months, Jay-Z’s Made in America festival is scheduled to return on multiple stages in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for Labor Day weekend.

Desiree Perez, the CEO of Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s management and entertainment company that puts on Made in America in conjunction with the Philadelphia regional office of concert promoters Live Nation, said in a statement Tuesday that the festival has always emphasized security, since its inception on the Parkway in 2012.

“Safety is always a top priority for Made In America,” Perez said. “Similar to previous years, we continue to retain the services of first class security personnel and coordinate in lockstep with the Philadelphia police department and city officials.”

Despite similarly patriotic names, Welcome America and Made in America are very different events.

Made in America is a ticketed, gated gathering in which the concertgoers are fenced in — and the non-ticket-buying public is kept off the grounds, which typically stretch from the Philadelphia Museum of Art — and the area behind Eakins Over where the officers were struck — all the way down to 22nd and the Parkway.

What all that chain-link fencing means for security purposes is that — despite its streets-of-Philadelphia setting — everyone who enters the MIA grounds must pass through a metal detector, just as they would at a more formal concert venue like the Mann Center in Fairmount Park or Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.

But the shots that wounded the officers at Welcome America came from outside the event site, Mayor Jim Kenney told NBC10 on Tuesday. Police were still working to determine exactly where the gunfire originated.

Because Welcome America is free, it has traditionally drawn much bigger numbers than Made in America.

Jay-Z’s festival draws high-profile artists. This year’s headliners are Grammy-winning rapper-producer Tyler, the Creator and Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny, with bold-faced Philadelphia names Jazmine Sullivan and Lil Uzi Vert also on the bill. In comparison, Monday’s bill at Welcome America was significantly less A-list, with R&B headliner Jason Derulo joined by pop vocalists Ava Max and Tori Kelly.

But that doesn’t translate into a smaller crowd. The real star of the show at Welcome America is the fireworks show: The performers are just the opening acts.

And though there was no official crowd estimate given about the size of Monday’s gathering, which was the first since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the July 4 show has traditionally attracted an enormous number of spectators. In 2015, the last year that city officials gave a crowd estimate, more than 175,000 people were thought to be gathered.

That’s more than three times the number who usually show up for Made in America, which is typically labeled a sellout when the grounds reach a capacity of 50,000. So with that number gathered within the gated grounds — and everyone entering presumably being monitored for weapons — the security challenges have not been as great on Labor Day weekend as they are on July 4.