VIRGINIA BEACH — A music festival in the works for the Oceanfront this fall has been canceled after city officials said too many key planning details were not finalized and they ran out of time.
Virginia Beach city leaders said Wednesday morning that the pop/rock event recently rescheduled for the last weekend in October will not go forward.
Audacy, a national radio company that owns several local stations, planned to produce the festival on the beach at 31st Street. The City Council recently approved a $750,000 sponsorship of the event in exchange for radio advertisements promoting tourism in Virginia Beach.
Some council members expressed concerns at the time of the vote about the quick turnaround time. Some also expressed reservations about another festival after feeling inundated with them in the resort area this year.
Audacy had produced concerts for the 2022 East Coast Surfing Championships in Virginia Beach with only a few months to plan.
Bennett Zier, president of Audacy Virginia LLC, a subsidiary of the parent company, didn’t know it was canceled when reached by phone Wednesday morning. Zier said he met with City Manager Patrick Duhaney on Tuesday.
“We had what I thought was a very productive conversation,” Zier said.
Last week, city staff announced Audacy’s festival would be pushed back a week from its original date in mid-October to not interfere with the Boardwalk Art Show.
But in a statement issued Wednesday, the city said “the condensed timeline presented challenges to City departments to safely provide the festival experience that our residents and guests expect.”
Initial planning for the festival began in June, said Tiffany Russell, the city’s communications director, in an email.
“The City’s typical planning window for an event of this size is approximately six months,” Russell said. “Things like traffic operations and management, public safety, parking operations, alcohol mitigation, and crowd management are all carefully considered and planned for.”
As of this week, many of the event details were still pending, and “time ran out,” she said.
Mayor Bobby Dyer, who had previously said the city could handle the festival’s crowd, said public safety was a consideration as well as the lineup not being finalized yet.
“There were just some lingering questions,” Dyer said. “It seemed like it wasn’t coming together in a way that we felt comfortable that would give it a real good chance for success.”
Audacy will be invited to propose a festival next year, according to the city statement.
“I’d like to do this year and next year,” Zier said.
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
