Festival to return in 2018 — but where?
The music event’s one-year hiatus will end once new location is determined
The Treasure Island Music Festival, a popular annual event that has drawn tens of thousands of fans since launching in 2007, won’t take place in 2017.
Instead, it will skip a year and return in 2018, organizers announced on Wednesday.
The hiatus was deemed necessary, in large part, to allow the two promoters — Noise Pop and Another Planet Entertainment — more time to find a new site for the event. The festival had been held on its namesake Treasure Island, from 2007 to 2016, but a massive redevelopment project on the island made the move necessary.
“We knew that Treasure Island wasn’t a permanent home,” says Jordan Kurland, co-owner of Noise Pop. “We felt very fortunate to have 10 years there. Even last year around this time, when we were prepping for the 10th (festival), we were already discussing taking a year off, just to kind of catch our breath.”
A pair of strong contenders has emerged for the new site in 2018 — but Kurland is being coy about those front-runners for now.
“We’ve narrowed it down to a couple of locations and they are on each side of the Bay Bridge,” Kurland says. “We are just not sure which one it is going to be.”
Or even if those locations will ultimately land the festival. “It’s possible that another one will come up,” Kurland said.
The hiatus also provides organizers with a chance to take a long look at how they’ve been operating the festival, which has hosted such well-regarded acts as Outkast, Beck, LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, Ice Cube, Justice, The xx, Belle & Sebastian, Modest Mouse and Haim.
“We definitely want to reboot the festival a little bit,” Kurland says. “It’s not going to be strikingly different than what we’ve been doing, other than the location. But we do want to add some things, subtract some things, look at the formula, etc.”
Along with the changes, however, one thing likely will remain the same.
“Although the event will no longer be held on Treasure Island, there are no plans to change the festival’s name, if for no other reason than to pay homage to the historic little island
“We felt very fortunate to have 10 years there. Even last year around this time, when we were prepping for the 10th (festival), we were already discussing taking a year off, just to kind of catch our breath.” — Jordan Kurland, co-owner of Noise Pop
that was home to the event for a decade … ,” according to a news release.
The absence of the Treasure Island fest is another big blow to the 2017 Bay Area music scene, which was rocked with the recent announcement of the cancellation of the Bridge School Benefit. In all, it’s shaping up to be a very different-looking fall concert calendar.
Yet, fans can take comfort in Kurland’s reassurance that Treasure Island is only taking a short hiatus.
“We are definitely coming back in 2018,” he says.
For more information, visit www.treasureislandfestival.com.