Looks like one of the biggest country music festivals in the country won’t be returning for 2025.
Faster Horses Festival is held annually at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, drawing tens of thousands of fans to the festival that’s generally held around the middle of July.
In 2024, the three-day festival featured headliners Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson and Hardy, along with performances from Cody Johnson, Riley Green, Shane Smith and the Saints, Zach Top and many more.
But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing in the past. The festival billed as the “party of the summer” has faced criticism from places like Rolling Stone and local newspaper MLive that have called the event “a hotbed of sexual assault.”
And in 2021, the three festival goers passed away while camping at Faster Horses after suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning leaking from a generator into their camper. A court found the festival and promoter Live Nation not responsible for the deaths.
But now, it seems like the festival has decided to take some time to regroup to return in 2026.
The festival announced today that Faster Horses won’t be happening in 2025, though it sounds like they’re aiming to bring it back (in some form) the following year.
In a statement posted to their social media, the festival expressed their appreciation for Michigan International Speedway and said they’re working on coming back from the future:
“We have made the decision to pause Faster Horses Festival in 2025.
We are taking the year to make plans for a bigger and better Faster Horses for our fans who deserve the absolute best.
We love our friends at Michigan International Speedway, the community, and all of those all those behind the scenes. While we hope to bring you something in the future, for now we encourage you to keep the community strong and support live music in Michigan!”
The cancelation may come as a surprise, but it also comes at a time when it seems more and more festivals are struggling to compete in what’s become a crowded landscape. Just in the past year or so we’ve seen several festivals announce they were taking a pause, while new festivals still continue to pop up every year.
Combined with rising ticket prices and a tough economy, it’s really no wonder that festivals are having to fight harder and harder to attract guests who are more conscious about spending money and expecting more bang for their buck.
Another problem is that so many festivals feature the same or similar lineups. When you have the same handful of artists headlining so many festivals throughout the summer, fans are naturally going to choose one or the other, leaving them competing for the same crowd (and dollars) while also leaving other fans out of the conversation entirely.
But at the same time as other festivals are struggling, or being canceled altogether, massive new festivals continue to pop up. While it’s not entirely “new,” Morgan Wallen’s Sand In My Boots Festival sold out almost immediately after being announced for this coming spring, which just shows that the demand is still there for the right lineup and experience.
Honestly, I see that being the way a lot of these festivals end up going: Partner with a big name artist to put their name on the festival to sell tickets.
And frankly I don’t really feel bad for Faster Horses, because they’re owned by a massive corporation like Live Nation. If anything, this gives the opportunity for fans to either attend a smaller, independently owned festival or for one to pop up to take the place of Faster Horses.
Festivals are always going to come and go, with the rare exceptions of a few that become traditions or mainstays of the summer festival season. But it seems like we’ve seen several festivals go away already in the past few years, so it may be time to have a conversation about just how many the market can really handle – and whether there are too many that are just too similar.