NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Followers of the Voodoo Music + Arts Expertise must wait a bit longer earlier than the competition returns to New Orleans.
On Friday, organizers confirmed in an announcement on social media and the competition’s website that the occasion will not occur this yr, calling it a “pause.”
New Orleans’ main spring festivals – the Jazz & Heritage Pageant, the French Quarter Pageant and the BUKU Music + Artwork Undertaking – all returned in 2022 after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Essence Pageant of Tradition is ready for an in-person comeback the primary weekend in July.
The Voodoo Fest is an annual competition held in Metropolis Park that includes nationwide and native acts. It attracts a heavy crowd of younger folks from town and surrounding areas and is often held on Halloween weekend.
Organizers didn’t give a cause for the cancellation, however mentioned extra updates can be posted on social media. The final competition was in October 2019, 5 months earlier than the pandemic shutdown.
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Voodoo had been on a roll earlier than the coronavirus pandemic. Complete attendance for the three-day twentieth anniversary in 2018, which featured Mumford & Sons, Travis Scott, Janelle Monae and the Arctic Monkeys, was reportedly 180,000. That was a 20% improve over the 2016 and 2017 totals of 150,000, and an excellent larger leap over earlier years, The Occasions Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.
Neither Don Kelly, who’s served as Voodoo’s director in recent times, nor a spokesperson for C3 Presents, the occasion’s producer, had responded to messages looking for touch upon 2022′s cancellation and what it’d imply for the way forward for the competition.
One particular person disenchanted by Voodoo’s disappearance is Jeff Borne, whose firm runs the Mortuary Haunted Home, and for a number of years, gave the competition its Halloween taste, the newspaper reported.
Being concerned with Voodoo “was an incredible expertise,” Borne mentioned. “It’s one in every of our favourite issues to do. We’re disenchanted that it’s not taking place this yr.”
His fall might be unusually quiet. The Scream Park, a scary, various amusement park that his firm produced at Metropolis Park’s Scout Island, gained’t return. He’ll focus as an alternative on the Mortuary, which opens in September, then wait to see whether or not Voodoo comes again from the useless in 2023.
“I hope so,” Borne mentioned. “It means loads to New Orleans. However within the massive image, it’s not that massive of a factor for C3 and Stay Nation.”
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