Central Park hosted the festival in 2022, which stars Lil Baby and Jazmine Sullivan. Last year, the festival moved to Piedmont Park for the first time — a decision that was described as a symbol of the company’s growth.
“We had a lot of people support us in Central Park,” One Musicfest founder J. Carter told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time. “We were sold out, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to return to Central Park just based on the size of the event and how quickly it was growing. We just needed a bigger footprint, and the timing was just right.”
The annual Black Music and Culture Festival, founded in 2010, attracts more than 100,000 participants each year. This year marks its fifteenth anniversary. Cardi B, Gunna and Earth, Wind & Fire are among the headliners. Single-day tickets start at $99 and can be purchased at onemusicfest.com/tickets/.
It’s been a tough year for paid music festivals in metro Atlanta this year. The rock and pop-oriented Music Midtown concert, which typically uses Piedmont Park in September, was canceled entirely before the lineup was announced. The EDM Imagine festival at Kingston Downs in Rome has decided to cancel 2024, due to inflation and other logistical issues. The Sweetwater 420 music festival, which moved to Pullman Yards this year, switched to a free model just two weeks before the April event when pre-sales were delayed, dropping artists like Black Pumas and Beck.
An NPR story last month noted that festivals have been canceled around the world as big acts focus on their own amphitheatres, arenas and stadium tours. She cited several examples of festivals that did not take place this year: Desert Daze, a psychedelic rock festival in Southern California; Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, a reggae music festival in Northern California; Kickoff Jam, a country music festival in Florida; Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Virginia; Surprising Little Thrills, a multi-genre festival in Pittsburgh; and Float Fest in Austin, Texas.
The article cited a combination of possible factors: escalating costs, a saturated festival market, and declining demand among Generation Z for festival-type events.
The AJC has reached out to One Musicfest for more information.
