UPDATE (9/24): Festival organizers announced that “due to unforeseen circumstances, Macklemore will no longer be performing,” with additional artist announcements to come “shortly.” The news comes after the rapper said “fuck America” during his set at the Palestine Will Live Forever benefit festival in Seattle over the weekend. Our original story appears below.
The lineup for the inaugural Neon City Festival is out. Headliners for the free festival (November 22–24) include Macklemore, Neon Trees, EDM artists Seven Lions and Alison Wonderland and country singer Russell Dickerson. They’ll all perform at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, but you can also catch bands perform on multiple stages at the Fremont Street Experience as well.
Neon City Festival CEO Jeff Victor said the music, art and culinary event, which he calls a “festival without fences,” was inspired by the early days of South by Southwest “when the town just kind of lit up.”
“It sounds fancy but there’s not anything terribly new about this,” Victor tells Time Out. “The idea of not having fences is just to encourage folks to bounce from the Arts District to Fremont East and to the Fremont Street Experience and the Stratosphere. Just put some miles on your shoes and see as much of downtown as you can.”
Victor said the weekend will have a First Friday-like vibe with pop-up performances and food trucks along with local artists and restaurants who are planning to set up tents on the streets to create lively block parties throughout the festival footprint.
“We’re seeing a whole bunch of enthusiasm from our neighbors and the participating casinos,” Victor says. “From the little music joints and restaurants to the thrift stores, everyone wants to be involved.”
Created by downtown Las Vegas casino owner Derek Stevens, the Neon City Festival will take place the same weekend as the Formula 1 race on the Strip. The festival is intended to give visitors an alternative to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, which has its own music festival (albeit a pricey one).
“The Neon City Festival was really born of necessity,” Victor says. “Last year, F1 was a raging success in and of itself but wasn’t so great for the destination as a whole. What we’re trying to do is create some complementary programming that weekend. So there’ll be the F1 race, the Neon City Festival and the Raiders game on Sunday. It’s going to be fun.”
Additional acts and a full schedule with dates and times of the performances will be released in the coming weeks.