Atlanta, GA’s Music Midtown festival has announced that it will not return in 2024. The festival most recently took place in September 2023 at the Georgia capital’s Central Park.
In a message posted on social media and on the festival’s website, organizers C3 Presents and Live Nation noted, “THANK YOU, ATLANTA. … After producing legendary festivals over the past 3 decades that drew music fans from across the globe, we want to share that Music Midtown is going on hiatus this year. We encourage you to continue supporting live music in Atlanta and stay tuned here for future updates.”
After running annually from 1994–2005 at various venues in Atlanta, Music Midtown returned from a six-year hiatus in 2011 at a new home, Piedmont Park, where it ran for the better part of a decade. While the festival’s 2020 edition was canceled due to the pandemic, it returned to Piedmont Park in 2021. In 2022, however, the festival was canceled just over a month before it was due to take place.
A statement at that time from organizers cited undisclosed “circumstances beyond our control” as the catalyst for the cancellation, though various reports speculated that the decision came down to a standstill surrounding Georgia gun laws and the festival’s legal inability to enforce a “no weapons” policy at Piedmont Park. Music Midtown eventually returned in 2023 for a full, three-day event featuring P!NK, Pitbull, Billie Eilish, The 1975, Louis The Child, Guns N’ Roses, Lil Baby, Incubus, and more.
Related: Music Midtown 2023: The Weekend In Photos [Gallery]
Music Midtown is the latest in a growing list of long-running festivals large and small skipping 2024, a trend that underscores the difficult nature of the modern festival market.. Others in similar hiatus situations this year include Firefly Music Festival, Sonic Bloom, Riverbend, Okeechobee, Made In America, and more, while events like Ventura, CA’s Skull & Roses, Mammoth, CA’s Horseshoe Music Festival, and Ozark, AR’s Backwoods at Mulberry Mountain attempted to mount 2024 events but eventually pulled the plug. Meanwhile, SweetWater 420 Fest downsized its planned 2024 event at the last minute, shifting to a free ticket model and cutting roughly half of its artists.
For more information on C3 Presents and Live Nation‘s Music Midtown, head to the event website or follow the festival on social media. Read the full post about the 2024 Music Midtown hiatus below.
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