festivals
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RodeoHouston’s 2024 lineup is set to once again showcase some of the loftiest talents in a range of genres, including rock, rap, country, Latin, Christian and more.
Jelly Roll, Blake Shelton, 50 Cent, the Jonas Brothers, Lainey Wilson, Eric Church, Los Tigres del Norte and for King & Country are a few of the artists slated to headline when RodeoHouston gets underway at Houston’s NRG Stadium from Feb. 27 through March 17.
“The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is proud to bring such a wide range of musical genres to the RodeoHouston stage,” said Chris Boleman, Rodeo president and CEO, in a statement. “We’re welcoming 10 new entertainers who will make their debut on the star stage, as well as many fan-favorites from a variety of genres from our country roots, to EDM and hip-hop.”
Among the newcomers to this year’s RodeoHouston stage are Carly Pearce, Oliver Anthony, 50 Cent, HARDY, current CMA new artist of the year winner Jelly Roll, reigning CMA entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson, “Rich Men North of Richmond” singer Oliver Anthony Music, Ivan Cornejo, Nickelback and Whiskey Myer.
These artists further add to RodeoHouston’s nearly 100-year legacy, in which time the rodeo has committed more than $600 million to aid education and youth-focused efforts in Texas. Each year, RodeoHouston draws more than 2 million people to its mix of rodeo/Western activities, musical performances and carnival midway.
Tickets go on sale at rodeohouston.com on Thursday, Jan. 18, in two waves — at 10 a.m. and2 p.m.
See the lineup of performers below:
Feb. 27 – Opening Day, presented by Texas Capital – Blake Shelton
Feb. 28 – Armed Forces Appreciation Day, presented by Crown Royal – Carly Pearce
Feb. 29 – for KING + COUNTRY
March 1 – Black Heritage Day, presented by Kroger – 50 Cent
March 2 -HARDY
March 3 – Ivan Cornejo
March 4 – First Responders Day, presented by BP America – Hank Williams Jr.
March 5 -Oliver Anthony
March 6 – Community Day, presented by TC Energy – Jelly Roll
March 7 – Volunteer Appreciation Day, presented by Phillips 66 – Luke Bryan
March 8 -Major Lazer
March 9 -Lainey Wilson
March 10 – Go Tejano Day, presented by Fiesta Mart – Los Tigres del Norte
March 11 -Whiskey Myers
March 12 -Bun B
March 13 -Nickelback
March 14 – Zac Brown Band
March 15 – Jonas Brothers
March 16 – Brad Paisley
March 17 – RODEOHOUSTON Finals – Eric Church
It may be early in the year, but the 2024 festival season is just around the corner. On Monday (Jan. 8) San Diego’s biannual dance festival CRSSD released the official lineup for their upcoming spring event. The house and techno-centric roster includes house legend Black Coffee, Italian duo Tale Of Us, Berlin mainstay Dixon, Detroit […]
BottleRock Napa Valley has unveiled the lineup for the Northern California music and culinary festival, with rock legends Pearl Jam, stadium headliner Ed Sheeran, two-time Rock Hall of Fame inductee Stevie Nicks and Spanish rock veterans Mana as headliners for the May 24-26 event. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]
After Krazy Super Concert held its inaugural show in New York this summer, Pulse Events’ newly launched K-pop concert series makes its next stop on the West Coast early next year. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Billboard can exclusively reveal the first details that Krazy Super Concert […]
South by Southwest Music Festival 2024 has revealed a second slate of artists set to perform in Austin next year. Among the highlights are Glasser, SPRINTS, GRÓA, Gruff Rhys, Ho99o9, Holly Macve, Kikuo, LAIR, Pink Pablo, PVA, Pylon Reenactment Society and Ralphie Choo, all of whom will showcase their talents during the six-day festival.
Next year’s SXSW Music Festival will take place from March 11-16 throughout the Austin area. Other emerging acts announced on Wednesday (Dec. 6) include RUBIO, Sinkane, Sofia Kourtesis, Sycco, Tamera, TENGGER, 250, Alexander Biggs, Enola Gay, DICE, HALLEY, HIEN, Skateland, Yo Diablo, Water Damage, TENGGER, Sui Zhen and RUBIO. The festival has created playlists on Spotify and YouTube featuring the music of the showcasing artists.
The list of showcase partners for the 38th annual SXSW has also grown, with labels like New West Records and Bayonet Records, as well as promoter High Road Touring and agency Mint Talent Group, being announced. Elsewhere, newly announced presenters include Adult Decisions, All The Vibes, ATC Live, Atomic Music Group, Breakout West, CareFreeBlackGirl, Chicken Ranch Records, City Slang, Dear Life Records, Dedstrange, Don Giovanni Records, Everything R&B, Father/Daughter Records, Fierce Panda, FOCUS Wales, Island Wave, Italians Do It Better, Gorilla vs. Bear, Jazz Re:Freshed, The Line of Best Fit, The Loyalty Firm, M for Montreal, Music from Ireland, Now Wave, Pop Montreal, Reeperbahn Festival, The Smoke Out, Space Agency, The Spanish Wave, Synásthesie Festival, Taiwan Beats, Tokyo Calling, Traffic Music and Wide Days Scotland.
Founded in 1987 in Austin, SXSW has grown to encompass tech, film and TV, music, education and culture. The entirety of the 2024 conference and festival will run from March 8-16.
In April 2021, it was announced that SXSW signed a “lifeline” deal with P-MRC, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and MRC, making P-MRC a stakeholder and long-term partner with the Austin festival. P-MRC is the parent company of Billboard.
See below for the full list of showcasing artists announced on Wednesday.
250 (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)Afternoon Bike Ride (Montreal CANADA)Akira Galaxy (Los Angeles CA)Ako（a子） (Himeji City JAPAN)Alexander Biggs (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)Alex Nicol (Montreal CANADA)Amis du Teche (Breaux Bridge LA)Angelo Moore and the Brand New Step (Austin TX)Anna Smyrk (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)Anna Vaverková (Prague CZECHIA)Another Sky (London UK-ENGLAND)Arches (Hong Kong HONG KONG)Askew (London UK-ENGLAND)Axel Flóvent (Reykjavik ICELAND)Äyanna (London UK-ENGLAND)The Ayoub Sisters (London UK-ENGLAND)Bad Bad Hats (Minneapolis MN)The Beatbox Collective (London UK-ENGLAND)beccs (Warehan MA)Bee Bee Sea (Castel Goffredo ITALY)Being Dead (Austin TX)Benjamin Walker (Chile MEXICO)Bess Atwell (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)Bleach Lab (London UK-ENGLAND)BLK JKS (Johannesburg SOUTH AFRICA)Bloomsday (Brooklyn NY)Blue Lake (Copenhagen DENMARK)Boy With Apple (Gothenburg SWEDEN)BROTHER DEGE (Lafayette LA)Buffalo Nichols (Milwaukee WI)Caleb Landry Jones (Garland TX)Camidoh (Accra GHANA)Carla Geneve (Perth AUSTRALIA)Certainly So (Nashville TN)Cha’keeta B (Austin TX)Chalk (Belfast UK-N. IRELAND)Chartreuse (The Black Country UK-ENGLAND)Chelsea Carmichael (London UK-ENGLAND)Chiaki Mayumura (Setagya JAPAN)Chief Cleopatra (Austin TX)China Bears (Bridgwater UK-ENGLAND)Chxrry22 (Toronto CANADA)CLT DRP (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)Conchur White (Portadown UK-N. IRELAND)CURRLS (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)Danny Bonilla (Dallas TX)Dasom Baek (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)Daydream Twins (Austin TX)Dead Tooth (Brooklyn NY)Delights (Manchester UK-ENGLAND)DICE (Perth AUSTRALIA)Dirt Buyer (Brooklyn NY)Discovery Zone (New York NY)Divorce (Nottingham UK-ENGLAND)Dobrawa Czocher (Warsaw POLAND)DOMICO (Tokyo JAPAN)Do Nothing (Nottingham UK-ENGLAND)Dream Nails (London UK-ENGLAND)Dumb Buoys Fishing Club (London UK-ENGLAND)dust (Newcastle AUSTRALIA)Earth Tongue (Wellington NEW ZEALAND)Eleni Drake (London UK-ENGLAND)Elisapie (Salluit CANADA)Elle Shimada (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)Ellie Bleach (London UK-ENGLAND)Emily Barker (Perth AUSTRALIA)Emily Frembgen (Brooklyn NY)Emma Aibara (Yokohama JAPAN)Enola Gay (Belfast UK-N. IRELAND)Etta Bond (London UK-ENGLAND)fantasy of a broken heart (Brooklyn NY)Fat Dog (London UK-ENGLAND)FAZI 法兹 (Xi’an CHINA)Field Guide (Winnipeg CANADA)Folk Bitch Trio (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)FONTINE (Winnipeg CANADA)Forest Claudette (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)Friedberg (Berlin GERMANY)Fust (Durham NC)Gavin James (Dublin IRELAND)Glasser (New York NY)Glixen (Phoenix AZ)Good Looks (Austin TX)Grandbrothers (Berlin GERMANY)GRÓA (Reykjavik ICELAND)Gruff Rhys (Cardiff UK-WALES)Gurriers (Dublin IRELAND)HALLEY (Waseda JAPAN)Harvest Thieves (Austin TX)Hause Plants (Lisbon PORTUGAL)The HawtThorns (Nashville TN)HIEN (Budapest HUNGARY)HighSchool (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)Hinako Omori (London UK-ENGLAND)HMS Morris (Cardiff UK-WALES)Ho99o9 (Newark NJ)Holly Macve (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)Hooks & The Huckleberries (Albuquerque NM)Hour (Philadelphia PA)The Howdies (Athens GA)Humour (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)HYPNOSIS THERAPY (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)IFE (New Orleans LA)Iona Zajac (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)Iris Jean (Alkmaar NETHERLANDS)Izo FitzRoy (London UK-ENGLAND)Jack Barksdale (Fort Worth TX)Jack Harris (Cleveland OH)JADA (London UK-ENGLAND)Jad Fair and the Placebos (Manor TX)Jaimee Harris (Nashville TN)JÁNA (Stockholm SWEDEN)Jazz re:freshed DJs (London UK-ENGLAND)Jeannel (Berlin GERMANY)Jeshi (London UK-ENGLAND)JFDR (Reykjavík ICELAND)JM Stevens (Austin TX)Jon Muq (Austin TX)Jon Vinyl (Toronto CANADA)Juani Mustard (Viña Del Mar CHILE)JUANPALITOSCHINOS (Mexico City MEXICO)Justin Webb (Nashville TN)Kali Claire (London UK-ENGLAND)Ken Yates (London CANADA)Kikuo (Tokyo JAPAN)Kroi (Tokyo JAPAN)LAIR (Jatiwangi INDONESIA)Laney Tripp (New Smyrna Beach CA)Larry Seaman (Austin TX)Laura-Mary Carter (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)Laura Misch (London UK-ENGLAND)Lauren Housley & The Northern Cowboys (Sheffield UK-ENGLAND)Lauren Lakis (Austin TX)L E M F R E C K (Newport UK-WALES)Library Card (Rotterdam NETHERLANDS)Lindsay Beaver & Brad Stivers (Austin TX)Lisa Morales (Austin TX)Logan Crosby (Milledgeville GA)Logan Halstead (Powell County KY)Los Cogelones (Mexico MEXICO)Lottery Winners (Leigh UK-ENGLAND)Madam Radar (Austin TX)Malugi (Berlin GERMANY)Mama Terra (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)The Manatees (Southampton UK-ENGLAND)maxime. (Montreal CANADA)May Rio (Brooklyn NY)Meagre Martin (Berlin GERMANY)Mia June (Perth AUSTRALIA)Mick Flannery (Cork IRELAND)Minas (Cardiff UK-WALES)Miranda and the Beat (Brooklyn NY)Miranda del Sol (New York NY)MØAA (Seattle WA)Moody Bank$ (Austin TX)Nagasaki Swim (Rotterdam NETHERLANDS)Natalie Jane Hill (Asheville NC)Native Harrow (Brighton UK-ENGLAND)néomí (Den Haag NETHERLANDS)NeOne Wonderer (Wolverhampton UK-ENGLAND)Neon Waltz (John O’groats UK-SCOTLAND)Night Lunch (Montreal CANADA)NOBRO (Montreal CANADA)O. (London UK-ENGLAND)Omni (Atlanta GA)OSKA (Vienna AUSTRIA)PAPISA (São Paulo BRAZIL)Pelvis Wrestley (Austin TX)Perennial (Amherst MA)Pink Pablo (San Juan PUERTO RICO)Planet Giza (Montreal CANADA)Plastic Palms (Turin ITALY)poolblood (Toronto CANADA)Population II (Montreal CANADA)Presence (Camarillo CA)The Psychotic Monks (Saint-Ouen FRANCE)PVA (London UK-ENGLAND)Pylon Reenactment Society (Athens GA)Rainbow Girls (Bodega CA)Ralphie Choo (Madrid SPAIN)The Rare Occasions (Los Angeles CA)Redbud (Austin TX)rEDOLENT (Edinburgh UK-SCOTLAND)Robby Hecht (Nashville TN)Rodeo Boys (Lansing MI)Rory James (Edinburgh UK-SCOTLAND)RUBIO (Mexico City MEXICO)Sam Williams (Paris TN)San Gabriel (Austin TX)San Saba County (Austin TX)Seafoam Walls (Miami FL)Selfish Sons (Brisbane AUSTRALIA)She’s In Parties (Colchester UK-ENGLAND)Sinkane (Brooklyn NY)Skateland (Austin TX)SNACKTIME (Philadelphia PA)Soda Blonde (Dublin IRELAND)Sofia Kourtesis (Berlin GERMANY)Sofi Paez (Berlin GERMANY)Softee (Moorhead MN)South Summit (Perth AUSTRALIA)SPRINTS (Dublin IRELAND)Stuck in the Sound (Paris FRANCE)Styrofoam Winos (Nashville TN)Sui Zhen (Melbourne AUSTRALIA)The Sully Band (San Diego CA)Sultan Stevenson (London UK-ENGLAND)Swallow the Rat (Auckland NEW ZEALAND)Sycco (Brisbane AUSTRALIA)Talia Goddess (Brooklyn NY)Tamera (London UK-ENGLAND)Teenage Sequence (Fort-Worth TX)Telehealth (Seattle WA)TENGGER (Seoul SOUTH KOREA)t e s t p r e s s (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)Texas String Assembly (Austin TX)TFD (Total Fucking Darkness) (Vancouver CANADA)This Is Lorelei (New York NY)THUS LOVE (Brattleboro VT)The Tiarras (Austin TX)Tokyo Syoki Syodo (Shimokitazawa JAPAN)TRACY DE SA (Sevres FRANCE)Tufan Derince (Diyarbakir TURKEY)twst (Barry UK-WALES)Venus Twins (Brooklyn NY)Vera Sola (Los Angeles CA)The Vices (Groningen NETHERLANDS)The View (Dundee UK-SCOTLAND)VLURE (Glasgow UK-SCOTLAND)Vulva Voce (Manchester UK-ENGLAND)Water Damage (Austin TX)William The Conqueror (Newquay UK-ENGLAND)Wyldest (London UK-ENGLAND)The XCERTS (Aberdeen UK-SCOTLAND)Yb. (Brisbane AUSTRALIA)YHWH Nailgun (New York NY)Yo Diablo (Valencia SPAIN)Yogetsu Akasaka (Tokyo JAPAN)YU-KA (Tokyo JAPAN)Zheani (Brisbane AUSTRALIA)Zoon (Winnipeg CANADA)ZÓRA (Budapest HUNGARY)zouz (Montréal CANADA)
Rejoice, Forest Fam. Electric Forest announced the lineup for its 2024 event on Tuesday (Dec. 5).
Again melding electronic, jam music with rock, hip-hop, indie and more, the four-day festival will be headlined by Pretty Lights, whose sold-out, 27-date comeback tour wrapped this past weekend, along with tech house phenom John Summit, Subtronics, Excision and resident headliners The String Cheese Incident.
Also getting top billing are techno star Charlotte de Witte, Ludacris, Dom Dolla and Summit performing as Everything Always, Nelly Furtado, The Disco Biscuits, Knock2, Black Tiger Sex Machine, Ben Bohmer, Clozee and LSDream performing as Psyren and many more. More artists will be added to the lineup in the coming months.
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“What I care more about is that attendees walk past a stage where they don’t know the act, but they stop because it’s cool music,” Electric Forest founder Jeremy Stein told Billboard in 2019. “[A diverse lineup] also creates a lot of doors for people from different walks of life to come to the festival. You’ll come because you’re a fan of ten artists on the lineup, and you’ll leave a fan of a lot more.”
The festival returns to Rothbury, Mich., June 20-23, 2024. Festival tickets go on sale Friday (Dec. 8).
Produced by AEG Presents and Insomniac Events, the festival takes place in the tiny town of Rothbury, Mich., (population: roughly 440) on a woodsy 400-acre expanse of land located 10 miles east of Lake Michigan. The event has been taking place at this site since 2008.
See the full lineup below:
Courtesy Photo
The lineup for the 2024 edition of the French hard rock festival Hellfest will featuring a quartet of heavy hitters headlining from June 27-30, including Foo Fighters, Metallica, Machine Head and Avenged Sevenfold.
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The first night — topped by A7X — will feature support from Megadeth, Dropkick Murphys, Bad Omens, Baby Metal, Enter Shakari and more. Machine Head top the Friday night lineup, with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello on the bill along with The Prodigy, Fear Factory, Steel Panther, Ice-T’s Body Count, Shaka Ponk, Biohazard, 311, Fu Manchu, Corrosion of Conformity and others.
Metallica will headline on night three, along with Mass Hysteria, Extreme, Mammoth WVH, Black Stone Cherry, The Dead Daisies, Saxon, Bruce Dickinson, Accept, Yngwie Malmsteen, Suicidal Tendencies, The Interruptors, Mr. Bungle and more. Foo Fighters do the honors on the final night, with support from Queen of the Stone Age, Royal Blood, Heart, Nova Twins, High on Fire, The Offspring, Corey Taylor, Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Simple Plan, Neck Deep, Madball, Rival Sons, Therapy?, Dimmu Borgir and many more.
The 17th edition of Hellfest will take place outside the western French city of Clisson with more than 160 bands setting up on six stages. Weekend tickets are already sold out and single-day tickets slated to go on sale early next year.
Last year’s event featured sets from Kiss, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Slipknot, Def Leppard, Tenacious D, Sum 41, Pantera, Rancid, Black Flag and more.
Check out the full lineup and the Hellfest 2024 poster below.
My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy are the top headliners on When We Were Young festival‘s 2024 lineup, which was announced Monday (Nov. 13).
The annual punk rock summit will return for a third year to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, kicking off Oct. 19, 2024. Also on the bill with MCR and FOB are A Day to Remember, Jimmy Eat World, Pierce the Veil, The Used, Simple Plan, Dashboard Confessional and dozens more.
The festival also promises that each group will perform an album in full, with highlights including My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American and A Day to Remember’s Homesick.
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Fans can sign up for tickets now on When We Were Young’s website to receive an access code for the 10 a.m. presale on Friday (Nov. 17). If there are still spots left after the presale, remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public later that day at 2 p.m. PT.
“Now Come One, Come All To This Tragic Affair………………,” wrote My Chemical Romance on the band’s Instagram page, sharing a poster for the festival.
Fall Out Boy also shared the poster to Instagram, writing, “headlining next year’s @whenwewereyoungfest see ya then Vegas ✌️”
The 2024 dates mark When We Were Young’s third year in Vegas, with MCR and Paramore headlining its inaugural festival there in 2022. Last year, Blink-182 and Green Day headlined the bill, which also included 5 Seconds of Summer, All Time Low, 30 Seconds to Mars, Good Charlotte, The Offspring, Something Corporate, Yellowcard and more.
See When We Were Young Festival’s 2024 lineup announcement below:
The inaugural Honeyland Festival produced by Live Nation Urban and Endeavor-owned IMG, opens this weekend at Crown Festival Park in Sugar Land, Texas, just outside Houston.
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Headlined by Mary J. Blige, Miguel and Summer Walker (who was announced as a replacement for Jazmine Sullivan last month) the festival combines high-end eats, wine and beer for a two-day experience dedicated to celebrating and elevating Black culture.
“Black customers are underserved in the festival space and want an experience where they can enjoy food and wine and music,” says Kevin Shivers, agent and partner at Endeavor-owned WME who pitched the idea for Honeyland to WME President Mark Shapiro as a “Black Bottlerock,” inspired by Live Nation and Latitude 38’s famous food and wine-centric festival that happens every year in Napa, California.
Shivers, who has booked his artist clients at hundreds of festivals globally, says the idea for Honeyland is to create a similar experience highlighting Black-owned food and wine businesses.
“At many festivals, no matter who is organizing it, white or Black, food is an afterthought, the signage looks bad and guests are drinking out of a plastic cup,” Shivers said. “That’s not a great experience.”
Houston was chosen because of the lack of major festivals in the Texas city, despite being internationally known as the original home of artists including Beyonce, Travis Scott, Megan Thee Stallion.
“You look at Atlanta or D.C. or any of these other markets and there’s a lot of stuff going on. And we thought Houston was pretty open and we found a great site where attendees can come in and make their way around the festival and enjoy music or drinks on their schedule,” Shivers said.
Additional musical performances listed in the star-studded lineup includes Houston rappers Coco Jones, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Scarface, and Tobe Nwigwe, who will serve as the festival’s “Houston Ambassador.”
Honeyland is being led by Staci Hallmon, IMG’s senior vp, who has previous leadership experience at Walmart, Coca Cola, Disney, Verizon and BET Networks, as well as Essence Magazine where she served as the architect of ESSENCE Festival.
Houston was ranked as the country’s No. 5 culinary destination in the country this year according to Travel + Leisure. Honeyland will highlight Black mixologists, blenders, wine experts and distillers. Single-day general admission ($95), GA+ ($140), and VIP passes ($295) are still available.
Several years ago, Miami-based Loud And Live CEO Nelson Albareda tried to book Brantley Gilbert for a country festival there — but, he says, Gilbert’s agent wouldn’t even pick up the phone. Though Albareda would grow to be a giant in the Latin touring community — he was named Billboard’s 2023 Latin Power Players executive of the year — at that time he was still building his company.
“I called my accounting team and said, ‘Wire $300,000 to William Morris and put Brantley Gilbert on it. And an agent called me and said, ‘Hey, why’d you wire me $300,000?’ and I said, ‘Exactly for this. We’re on the phone. I want to make a deal.’” And that’s how Loud And Live booked Gilbert for 2016’s one-day Tequila Bay Fest, which also featured Montgomery Gentry (in the duo’s last show before Troy Gentry’s death) and Kip Moore, among others.
But Albareda had much bigger plans on his mind. He was keenly aware that country music appealed to Latinos — a Country Music Assn. study showed that Hispanic country music listeners increased 25% between 2006 and 2016 — and that the Miami market was highly underserved by country music tours, which tended to stop in Palm Beach, Fla. — located 75 miles north — instead.
Flash forward seven years and Albarada is realizing the dream that started so many years ago with this weekend’s two-day Country Bay Music Festival. Kicking off Saturday (Nov. 11), the festival, held on the Miami Marina Stadium grounds in Key Biscayne, Fla. near downtown Miami, will feature headliners Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett, as well as Lainey Wilson, Chris Young, Lee Brice, Elle King, Blanco Brown and BRELAND, among others. For some local flair, Miami-based Latin acts Alexandra Rodriguez and “Cuban Cowboy” Orlando Mendez are also on the bill, as well as country duo Neon Union, which includes Miami-born Leo Brooks.
This time, Nashville agents were all in. Albareda says he had a phone call with 60 agents to talk about the festival and that former agent Gilbert Paz, who now works for Albareda, visited Nashville at least three times over the last two years to meet with agents and managers.
One of those meetings was with The Core Entertainment, whose clients Nate Smith and Josh Ross are playing the festival. The company’s co-founder, “Chief” Zaruk, remembers meeting with reps from Live And Loud several months ago. “They came to [Nashville] with the purpose of saying, ‘Here’s our concept,’ and to explain to people what their vision was for this festival. They did it very smartly,” he says.
The idea of playing to a more diverse audience immediately appealed to Zaruk. “The Latin scene is massive, so if there’s an audience there that we can tap into that also loves country, we’re excited about the opportunity to get into a new fan base,” he says. “It’s only going to help country music and it’s only going to help personally our artists and we’re really excited to see the reaction.”
Fans can attend the festival via land and sea. The Miami Marine Stadium grounds hold around 25,000 people, but eventgoers can also enjoy it from their own boats with the purchase of a BYOBoat pass. “One of the things we want to do is capitalize on what Miami is all about,” Albareda says. “The venue and the way that it’s laid out has a whole view of downtown Miami. Miami Marine Stadium was originally built as a stadium for boat races, so the stadium faces an entire marine basin. Through the years it’s become an iconic place to anchor your boat. What we’ve done for the first time is secured the permits to close the basin and issued permits for you to bring your boat.”
Albareda adds that the festival’s more than 100 boat permits have sold out, with prices based on how many feet the boat measures. Tickets for landlubbers are scaled from as low as around $144 for a one-day pass to two-day platinum VIP tickets priced at more than $1,000.
Sponsorship dollars are also rolling in, with Zelle serving as the primary partner. “We are 300% above what our original budget was,” Albareda says.
To build awareness for the festival, which Loud and Live is presenting in conjunction with its South Florida-focused live events division, EngageLive!, the promoter held a series of pre-parties at the VIVO! Dolphin Mall featuring free concerts by such acts as Frank Ray and Austin Snell and is slated to hold a kick-off party on Friday night (Nov. 10).
Albareda sees tremendous similarities between the Latin and country genres, including the loyalty of the fans to the artists, the tight-knit industry, the emphasis on family and songs that rely on storytelling. “When you look at country music, it’s all about the story, when you look at Latin music it’s about the story. They’re about ‘I’m in love’ or ‘I’m gonna have a tequila’ or ‘I’m gonna have a beer.’ Those cultural relevances are very similar between Latin and country so that is something that has really attracted me.”
Therefore, Albareda views Country Bay Music Festival as more than a one-off event. “I believe that Loud And Live is not only invested in Country Bay, but in figuring out how do we continue to grow within the country genre,” Albareda says, adding that the company is looking at promoting individual country shows within Miami beyond the festival and then building from there to other cities.
Country Bay’s biggest local competition comes from the three-day Tortuga Music Festival, held every spring in neighboring Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (this year’s edition, which occurred in April, featured Shania Twain, Kenny Chesney and Eric Church, among others). But Albareda sees the two events as more complementary than competitive.
“The festivals are far enough apart and we wanted to differentiate with our diversity. Miami is a diverse city, we wanted a diverse line-up,” Albareda says. “The idea was to [be] reflective of what’s happening overall with music and even with country. Also, if you’re going to have it in Miami, you should reflect the diversity of a market like Miami.”
While it’s too early to know for sure how successful Country Bay will be financially, Albareda is bullish on country music’s overall future in Miami. “We expect hopefully to make money and, if not, to break even,” he says. “Whether it will be profitable or not, we have a multi-year internal commitment to build the festival. We are already picking talent for next year.”