Moonrise Festival unlikely to return to Pimlico this summer

The Moonrise Festival, an annual celebration of electronic dance music at Pimlico Race Course, is not on track for a return engagement this summer.

No announcement has been made. No tickets have been sold. Baltimore is not listed in a calendar of upcoming events for the organizers. And Moonrise

Festival’s website hasn’t been updated since August 2023.

To top that off, Baltimore City Department of Transportation officials have not received a permit request for the festival that transforms Pimlico into a galaxy-like atmosphere with scores of DJs and other musical acts split among multiple stages.

“We would normally have received an application by this point,” a Baltimore DOT spokesperson said, referring further questions to festival organizers.

Insomniac, which organizes the festival, did not return multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles-based production agency is out of the country until March 25, according to an email that bounced back to The Baltimore Sun.

The office of City Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer, who represents District 5 which includes the Pimlico neighborhood, said it does not expect the event to take place this year.

“We welcome the economic benefits festivals bring to our district & city. We are sad to see any annual event no longer happening at the Pimlico Race track,” Schleifer said in a statement emailed to The Sun.

“We look forward to other large events utilizing the race track in the future to fill this economic void. We are confident with the rebuild of the race track, that yearround events will come to Pimlico.”

The Moonrise Festival has drawn hundreds of thousands of EDM fans to Pimlico since its inception in 2014. After taking off two years for the COVID19 pandemic, the event returned to Baltimore in 2022. Headliners over the years included Afrojack, Zed’s Dead and Excision, and rap acts including Lil Uzi Vert and Run the Jewels.

But Baltimore EDM followers need not totally despair. Insomniac will present Project Glow, another electronic music festival, at RFK Stadium in Washington this spring for the third year. Tickets are still available for the April 28-29 event, which features over 50 artists on three stages.