Moonrise Festival isn’t happening in 2024; fans are heartbroken

The Moonrise Festival held annually at Pimlico Race Course isn’t happening in 2024, Baltimore City Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer said Thursday, leaving fans of the popular dance music gathering heartbroken.

The festival drew as many as 30,000 people for the weekend to the historic racetrack, which has hosted the event since 2014. The festival, like many other events, went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Word of the festival being called off came after the gathering’s website and popular ticket selling sites such as StubHub did not list tickets for sale. And Pimlico did not include the festival on its calendar of upcoming events.

“I was told it was too costly to put it on and the revenues didn’t make it sustainable,” Schleifer told The Baltimore Banner.

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Messages left for the Baltimore Department of Transportation and the Stronach Group, which owns Pimlico, inquiring about the festival were not returned Thursday night. A contact for the festival could not be located.

It was not immediately clear if festival organizers would try to revive the Moonrise Festival in the future.

Musical headliners at the festival have included The Chainsmokers, Cashmere Cat and Dutch DJ Tiësto. The 2023 iteration saw Above & Beyond, John Summit, Louis the Child, Kaskade (Redux), Dillon Francis and San Holo lead the musical lineup.

For fans of the festival, word that Moonrise Festival 2024 wasn’t happening proved heartbreaking.

“End of an era and of my home fest, been going every year since 2015. I’m going to fully miss Moonrise,” Baltimore resident Paije Umphlett posted in a Facebook group dedicated to the festival.

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“I’ll cry real tears,” Facebook group member Tiffany Brown wrote Thursday.

Josh DeMars, another Facebook group member, wrote that he’s been to each festival since 2014.

“This makes me sad,” DeMars wrote.

The first Moonrise Festival in the Baltimore area had been scheduled for 2013 in the Port Covington area of the Baltimore Peninsula. That festival didn’t come together because organizers couldn’t get the necessary permits from the city.

Brett Barrouquere

brett.barrouquere@thebaltimorebanner.com