Lightning In A Bottle Festival announces official cancellation

Lightning In A Bottle (LIB) festival officially announces cancellation due to coronavirus concerns.  The annual festival, known for electronic dance music, arts and yoga, is held at Buena Vista Lake in Central Valley, California and on Memorial Day weekend each year.  At past festivals, the acts included Bassnectar, Cashmere Cat, Giraffage and Griz just to name a few.  LIB has made the announcement via their website stating the following:

“Dear LIB community,

It is with a heavy heart that we must share the news that this year’s Lightning in a Bottle Festival is not able to take place on Memorial Day Weekend at Buena Vista Lake. As the Novel Coronavirus has spread, we have been consulting with officials in Kern County and paying attention to the guidelines put out by state authorities. As you may have heard the State of California is now urging the halting of all mass gatherings over 250 people and we are now in a National Emergency. In addition, we are aware that the significant county resources we depend on to produce a safe event cannot be guaranteed to be available in the coming months for non-essential services. The health and safety of our attendees, our amazing staff, crew, vendors, artists and supporters is priority number one. In light of all this, it has become clear that putting on the festival in May is not currently possible.

These are unprecedented times and no one knows exactly what tomorrow will bring. We’re absolutely heartbroken to not be able to offer the light of LIB during these trying times and the decision to take this extraordinary step has been a very difficult one. We are acutely aware that the ripple effects of this action combined with the massive disruption to the entire events industry will be felt for some time. Our hearts go out to everyone that won’t be able to build stages, sell their handcrafted goods, make amazing art that touches souls, play the music that someone will fall in love to and especially to all the attendees that won’t have a chance to have that Memorial Day festival experience that could change the course of their lives forever. To all of you, we say hang in there. This too will pass.”

The world has been a strange place the past few weeks with mass cancellations of public gatherings due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) all over the globe, including cancelling the season staple, Miami Music Week altogether.  The outbreak does not stop at the cancellations of festivals, however, many countries are on lockdown, international travel has halted, major sports teams have halted the season as well as the production of films and even TV shows are foregoing having live audiences.  While this piece of history hurts to write, we hope we won’t have to wait too long before we can begin to live through live music again.