Oct. 1 will be the mark of seven years since the tragedy of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Following the mourning of the 60 innocent lives taken at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the Las Vegas community, to this day, is still working towards re-strengthening the local community.
One of those signs that would point towards progression was supposed to be the Giddy Up Music Festival, the would-be first country music festival since Oct. 1, 2017. Announced this past June, Giddy Up was planned to be a three-day festival from Oct. 18-20 at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center.
Three-day event passes started at $180, and the lineup featured well-known names in country music, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Megan Moroney, Turnpike Troubadours, Chase Rice and more.
On Aug. 30, the organizers of the Giddy Up Music Festival took to social media to announce that the production team is no longer moving forward with the much-anticipated event. The Instagram post did not provide an explanation as to why the festival was canceled, and the @giddyupvegas account has turned off the ability for anyone to comment on their posts.
Colby Raffel, a junior at UNLV who “purchased Giddy Up tickets (at the) end of June,” believes that the reason behind the abrupt cancellation was that “they did not sell enough tickets.”
Rebekah Palmaffy, a senior at UNLV “was planning on going with two of [her] sorority sisters and was excited to experience something [she had] never experienced before.” Despite never going to a local country music festival, Palmaffy “was expecting the crowd to be more local since it was a smaller festival, similar to the crowd at Stoney’s, just a bunch of country music-loving people.”
While country music festivals have gained popularity recently, with performers including Zach Bryan, Lana Del Rey and Luke Combs announced to play at Stagecoach of 2025, there is the possibility of Giddy Up fumbling a large opportunity to establish Las Vegas as a country music festival destination.
Palmaffy agreed with Raffel on speculation that the festival could have been canceled due to low sale rates and added she believes that the festival would likely still be in production had it been advertised more.
“I think the festival would have had a really strong sense of community and a safe space for the people who were involved with the October 1st shooting, especially since it would have been the first country festival since then,” said Palmaffy.
Aside from the reason behind Giddy Up’s cancellation, the question now remains to be whether or not the production of any country music festival could be a future possibility. Factors such as safety, sales and resources remain to be at the forefront of planning out any music festival, especially in an open area like Downtown Las Vegas.
Palmaffy “believes this festival, along with other country festivals, will start to come back to Vegas. Country is becoming a lot more popular in our area and Vegas is starting to grow more in the music entertainment area.”
The festival cancelation announcement was posted as follows:
“There’s nothing we would love more than to ride through the festival gates with you this October, but unfortunately we can no longer move forward with Giddy Up Las Vegas Music Festival 2024. We understand that many of you who have purchased tickets looked at Giddy Up as the must-attend event of the season, and we are truly sorry. It is not possible to overstate just how seriously we, as producers and promoters, take the decision to cancel this year’s festival. All tickets purchased directly through Giddy Up and our official partners will be automatically refunded at the point of purchase to the original payment method within 7-10 business days. Our team will be in touch directly with more details. We appreciate your understanding, if you have any further questions please direct them to the team@giddyupfest.com.”
The UNLV Scarlet & Gray Free Press has reached out to the Giddy Up team and has not received any response.
