Sasquatch Music Festival will not return in 2019, it was announced Thursday.
The festival’s founder and producer Adam Zacks announced he will no longer produce the festival, which has taken place at the Gorge in Washington the past 17 years.
“Sasquatch! will forever remain a tapestry of the people who worked with us,” Zacks said in a press statement. “The artists who inspired us, and the varied experiences of the fans who attended it… of friendships made, engagements, hilltop weddings, permanent tattoos, once in a lifetime collaborations, weather events both treacherous and magnificent, at least one very public conception, and, of course, hundreds of awe inspiring performances. My humblest gratitude to all of you.”
This is a major blow to the American festival landscape, as Sasquatch was one of the longest-running festivals in the country. It certainly suggests the festival bubble is real and that it’s popping.
This is a huge bummer to me personally as well. The Gorge remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen live music when I attended Sasquatch in 2015 for the first time. That year, I found people to camp with via a rideshare website (Rickyrides?) that paired me with a British pal Dave who has remained a friend of mine ever since. I attended the festival with him and his pals in 2016.
I skipped Sasquatch the past two years because the lineups just weren’t up to snuff compared to previous iterations. The festival took a huge blow when it attempted offering a second weekend in 2014 over the Fourth of July. That didn’t sell well and had to be canceled due to lack of support. It feels as though Sasquatch has been trying to climb out of a hole ever since.
The phrasing of the announcement that Zacks will “no longer be producing the festival” and “nor will it take place in 2019” does leave a glimmer of hope for the future. I certainly hope this isn’t the last multi-day music festival that offers a wide range of genres to take place at the Gorge.
The final year of Sasquatch featured a lineup topped by Bon Iver, The National, and David Byrne, among others.
