A multi-day outdoor music festival is coming to Huntsville.
It’s now official after the city council Thursday night unanimously approved a three-year contract with promotor C3 Presents. The festival will take place on a Saturday and Sunday, starting on the last Saturday in September or the weekend before the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which is typically in early October.
Related: More details emerge about Huntsville’s planned outdoor music festival
The festival will take place in John Hunt Park and about 30-35,000 people are expected to attend over two days, according to Ted Heinig of C3.
The contract states that the anticipated start of the festival is 2025 but Shane Davis, the city’s director of urban and economic development, said C3 is “very optimistic” that a festival can be held in 2024. That decision, according to the contract, must be made in January.
The most important factor in that decision, Davis said, is the quality of the event.
No musical acts have been announced for the festival but Heinig said there will be local acts at the event.
The city will make available $3 million to C3 over the span of the three-year contract to protect the promotor over financial losses. C3 is responsible for all aspects of the event – from booking acts to constructing the venue to restoring John Hunt Park to its same condition as before the festival – while the city will provide police, fire and medical services without cost to C3, the contract states.
“This will have significant appeal and should attract music fans from other states and possibly other countries,” Mayor Tommy Battle said in a statement. “The investments we’ve made over the years to John Hunt Park are already attracting large-scale sports events, and it’s also what appealed to C3 Presents. It’s the perfect venue for an event of this magnitude.”
Huntsville Music Officer Matt Mandrella said he’s excited about the City’s partnership with C3 Presents and looks forward to the first lineup announcement.
“C3′s global body of work speaks for itself, and the fact that a festival producer of their caliber is committed to developing a signature event in Huntsville speaks volumes to our reputation as an emerging music city,” Mandrella said in a statement. “Their team is very excited about coming to Huntsville, and we’re confident they will deliver the world class festival experience our community deserves.”
The council spoke with enthusiasm about the festival with Jennie Robinson saying the event has been the first thing mentioned in recent conversations with constituents and Bill Kling dropping not-so-subtle hints about his preference for The Rolling Stones to rock the Rocket City. Devyn Keith lobbied for diversity in the acts, which Davis said is written into the contract and was a priority for the city in planning the festival.
C3 is perhaps best known as promotors for Bonnaroo in southern Tennessee and Lollapalooza in Chicago. The Huntsville event won’t be to that same scale and Heinig said a comparison would be Railbird, another C3 event that’s held each year in Lexington, Ky. Railbird, held in June each year, attracts about 80,000 people over two days and Heinig said C3 donated $125,000 to local charities this year.
In a nod to the appeal of holding a musical festival and attracting people to Huntsville, Heinig said about 60 percent of people attending Railbird came from outside Kentucky.
Heinig said conversations with Huntsville about the music festival started about a year and a half ago when Mandrella reached out to share that the Rocket City was interested in a major outdoor music event.
