Posted by Lollapalooza on Tuesday, June 9, 2020
This year's Lollapalooza festival has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping the globe. The annual event, which was scheduled to take place at at Grant Park in Chicago and which typically draws about 100,000 people each year, will now be an online event with live music in a weekend-long livestream event July 30–August 2, 2020. The livestream will include "performances from around the city and beyond, epic archival sets from Chicago and the festival’s six international editions, never-before-seen footage from the 1990s and much more," according to the festival organizers. More details will be made available in July.
"We wish we could bring Lollapalooza to Grant Park again this year, but we understand why things can't move forward as planned," the organizers said in a statement. "The health and safety of our fans, artists, partners, staff and community is always our highest priority."
At the end of March, just a couple of weeks after the coronavirus pandemic was declared, Lollapalooza posted on Twitter: "Right around this time every year, we come together to celebrate the announcement of another incredible Lollapalooza lineup. For now, we are at home, taking care of each other, listening to music, and dreaming of summertime in Chicago. While we stay in close contact with local officials, we are well underway with planning for Lolla to take place as soon as it’s safe for us all to be together in Grant Park. We will provide updates as soon as we can. Until then, please stay home and take care of yourself and each other."
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of concerts and festivals have either been postponed or canceled, as social distancing and self-quarantining make performing live music and attending live shows all but impossible.
More than 7.1 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide and more than 407,000 deaths so far, putting public health systems and emergency services under immense pressure.
U.S. officials have repeatedly urged Americans to heed what federal, state and local officials are asking of them in order to curtail the spread and dampen the impact of the virus on the population.
