Virgin Fest, a new festival scheduled to make its debut in Los Angeles June 6-7 with acts such as Lizzo, A$AP Rocky and Anderson .Paak has pulled the plug for 2020 due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, but is planned to return in 2021.
“We are disappointed we cannot soon share our vision for the Festival of Tomorrow, today,” the announcement, posted Saturday, May 9, to the festival’s website and social media accounts, reads in part.
“The safety of our community, well-being of all and the healing of our planet are our underlying focus. So, as a result of the governmental restrictions and mandates resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Virgin Fest Los Angeles is prevented from proceeding as scheduled next month.”
The cancellation comes days after Chief Marketing Officer Steve Levy said the festival was still on track for Banc of California Stadium and Exposition Park in June on in an online panel for the AMP Music Summit on Wednesday, May 6, even as dozens of other events have canceled or been postponed in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The pandemic has upended the music industry, particularly in Southern California’s formerly booming festival market.
Other major events scheduled for the spring, such as April’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and Stagecoach Country Music Festival, have been pushed to October, for now. The second year of the BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach was supposed to happen May 1-3, but organizers have held off on announcing new dates as they watch how things play out. Insomniac’s Beyond Wonderland, which was originally scheduled for San Bernardino in March and rescheduled for mid-June, will not be happening at all in 2020, organizers announced earlier this week.
Currently, concerts and festivals are banned by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order and he has said that they are the fourth and final stage in his plan for reopening the state, which could be months or more than a year away.
Virgin Fest was organized to honor the 50th anniversary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and hoped to attract 30,000 people per day to the event focused on inclusion and diversity. The musically and geographically diverse lineup was majority women or female-fronted acts, and the bill also included gender fluid performers. The festival also focused on sustainability, with no single use plastic items allowed, and no parking at the venue to encourage public transportation use.
The post from Virgin Fest said that the show would happen in 2021 at Banc of California Stadium and Exposition Park and offered ticketholders an immediate full refund or the option to hold on to the ticket get upgraded for 2021 with an instructional email forthcoming.
“We will be back LA, and everyone is welcome,” the festival’s post concludes.
