Desert Daze, the independent festival in Lake Perris, California that was set to return this year with Jack White, Cigarettes After Sex, and more, has canceled its 2024 fest.
In a statement shared on social media, festival organizers said “rising production costs and the current volatile festival market” had made it “no longer possible to execute the weekend as planned.” Last year’s Desert Daze festival was also called off, with organizers instead hosting a series of concerts around Southern California.
“As an independent festival, an increasing rarity in today’s festival market, Desert Daze is run by a small team of people who love live music and this community,” the festival said, adding: “With each year, we do our best to serve the Desert Daze community. We are always learning and working diligently to improve the experience, and we tried everything to find a way forward.”
Those with tickets for this year’s fest — which was set to take place Oct. 10 through 13 — will be refunded via point of purchase. Organizers thanked fans for their support and said they would “continue to work to find a way to keep this beautiful thing going for many years to come. While we hit pause for now, we will be working in the background to deliver another special experience for all of us to share in the future.”
The Desert Daze 2024 lineup was also slated to feature performances from Alex G, the Mars Volta, Thundercat, Fleet Foxes, 100 Gecs, Sleep, Liz Phair, De La Soul, the Kills, Beach Fossils, DIIV, Marc Rebillet, and Molchat Doma. The festival debuted in 2018 and has run every year since up to 2023 (except for 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic).
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In an interview with the Los Angeles Times festival founder Phil Pirrone spoke more about the financial realities that forced the decision. “This is a tough year for everybody,” he said. “That goes from groceries all the way to production costs. I think it goes beyond the music industry. I think just everything is too expensive right now. You know the cost of putting on an event, whether you’re a small festival or a big festival, nobody’s immune to it right now. If you compare the cost of putting on a festival even a few years ago, line by line, you’re just like, wow.”
In the years since the pandemic, the live music industry has been grappling with issues like higher costs and lower profit margins, which has made it increasingly difficult for independent festivals to keep running, or for smaller artists to tour. Earlier this month, for instance rising English singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri announced that she had to drop off a North American tour supporting Remi Wolf because of the “financial risk it would entail.” Not long after, the celebrated hardcore punk collective, the Armed, was forced to make a similar decision ahead of their upcoming North American tour.
