C3 Presents plans new US festival for 2024

C3 Presents, the Live Nation-backed promoter behind Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, has announced a new US festival for 2024.

Minnesota Yacht Club Festival will take place between 19–20 July 2024 at Harriet Island Regional Park in Saint Paul, the capital city of Minnesota.

The two-day event will invite 20 artists to perform across two stages by the Mississippi Riverfront, according to the website, though the lineup and ticket prices are under wraps until mid-January. Organisers are aiming to draw 30,000-35,000 fans per day for the inaugural event.

“We deserve a big music fest like this,” Tim Sweetwood of Atlanta-based C3 Presents told local newspaper Star Tribune. “When you consider that the Twin Cities [Minneapolis–Saint Paul] is a big enough market to support five major-league sports teams, I don’t see why it can’t support one major music festival, too.”

“I don’t see why [the Twin Cities] can’t support one major music festival”

Parent company Live Nation staged a music festival called River’s Edge at the very same location in 2016, headlined by Tool and Dave Matthews Band.

The live music behemoth reportedly promised to produce River’s Edge there for five years but instead pulled the festival after its debut edition.

“From a musical perspective we’re just going to try to produce a lineup that just jibes a little bit better [than River’s Edge] and offers more synergy from day to day,” Sweetwood said.

“And we’ll try to give it a little more colour and better branding, the kind of things we have a good feel for at C3 being primarily a festival producer. We are going to put the Padelford and some other boats to work as part of the festival experience.

“We’ll just have the two stages in the first year, and so you can only do so many genres but we’ll cover adult-contemporary, rock, pop, some blues, a cool mix like that.”

C3 Presents’ festival portfolio also includes rock festival Shaky Knees, alternative rock event Sick New World and country music offering Two Step Inn.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.