The Firefly Music Festival in Delaware is the latest music fest to announce a lineup. Not even a week after we reported that Coachella had released their lineup for their April fest, Firefly announced a lineup that includes the reunited Outkast. The headliners for the show will be The Foo Fighters and Jack Johnson. Other prominent artists confirmed include Weezer, Imagine Dragons, Tegan & Sara, Chance the Rapper, Arctic Monkeys, Sleigh Bells, and the Lumineers. According to Firefly’s youtube page, “over 65 more” acts will be announced soon.
In anticipation of the event we decided to put together a “did you know” sheet about the festival. So here they are:
The Festival is extremely new
The event was first held in July of 2012 and is put together by a company called Red Frog Events. The festival takes place in The Woodlands of Dover International Speedway, a 154-acre festival ground, over the span of three days. Many nationally known musical acts performed at the festival, with 48 performances held over the course of the festival in 2012. The hope is that the festival can mimic or at least live up to the famous Bonaroo festival in Tennessee and other big outdoor music fests.
So Far People Love It
If you think about it there aren’t too many festivals on the East Coast that rock out like a Woodstock. And that’s what Firefly Music Festival may eventually do. Here are a couple of quotes about the event.
“In its debut year, Firefly was surprisingly devoid of on-site hiccups. Organized by Red Frog Events…Firefly rolled on with the precision of an event many years in the making.” – Billboard
“It’s about time the East Coast had a great music festival.” – Emily Sheetz for MusicUnderFire
It Helps Delware’s Economy
In 2012, Delaware Tourism Director Linda Parkowski said she expected the festival to generate $12.6 million in revenue for Delaware, as well as bring 30,000-40,000 people from 48 out of 50 states to Dover. For 2013, expectations are even greater, with estimates of generated revenue being between $12–30 million for central Delaware – via Wikipedia
It Cares about the Environment
Firefly Music Festival promotes itself as a sustainable and environmentally friendly festival, with its program Sustainable Beats. A part of this program includes carbon footprint offsetting with ticket purchases. Attendees of the festival have the option of donating to the carbon footprint offsetting program when purchasing their tickets online, which allows each attendee to offset 440 pounds of carbon dioxide. The festival matches each of these donations up until the festival is completely carbon neutral. In 2012, this program offset over 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide. Additionally, water refill stations are found throughout The Woodlands, reusable water bottles are sold at the concert and encouraged to concert attendees, and the festival participates in a waste diversion program to reduce the amount of trash from the festival that ends up in a landfill. via Wikipedia
They Partner with St Judes for Charity
In addition to Red Frog Events, Firefly Music Festival partners with St Jude Kids Program to encourage the fight against cancer. There’s a tent at the event for this cause which includes meet and greets with performers and other ways of fundraising. In 2012 there were over $4MM in donations.
Firefly Music Festival is set for June 19-22 at the 154 acres of the Woodlands of Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. Information on tickets, which go on sale “early 2014,” is available here.
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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