Sold-Out Country Music Festival Cancels Three Months Out

In an unexpected turn of events, a new country music festival in the US has been cancelled, less than three months out from its launch, despite tickets being fully sold-out.

The Kickoff Jam in Florida was announced back in April, and was scheduled to run down over three days (Friday August 30 to Sunday September 1) at Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach. Carrie Underwood was locked in to headline the Friday night’s program, while Garth Brooks would’ve led Saturday’s fare, and Alabama would’ve wrapped things up on Sunday (with their set featuring a special appearance from Randy Travis).

Tickets ranged from $300 to $2,200 USD (or $454 to $3,330 AUD) and according to Country Living, general admission passes were sold out by May 4.

Nevertheless, organisers confirmed last week that Kickoff Jam was being scrapped from the calendar, sharing in a formal statement posted on social media: “After the success of Gulf Coast Jam this past weekend in Panama City Beach, we realized the weekend after Memorial Day [the last Monday in May] is a much better time to host a festival. So, we are going to cancel Kickoff Jam and provide refunds.”

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In a follow-up post, the organisers confirmed they’ve begun issuing refunds to ticketholders, with all of them expected to be completed automatically by this Friday (June 21).

Commenters have not responded lightly to the cancellation, with some refusing to buy the narrative put forward by the organisers. “This is all the way suspect,” one commenter wrote (again per Country Living), while another argued that the official statement “makes zero sense”.

Another suspicious commenter wrote, “I don’t understand how them finding a better time for [Gulf Coast Jam] affects Kickoff Jam, or why they didn’t just reschedule it for a non holiday weekend.”